Pop culture references in political writing

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Railyon's picture
Railyon
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Aug 2 2012 12:06
Pop culture references in political writing

I'm interested to hear your take on this in general. I know some people are slamming Zizek for example for his use of pop culture references in his works (though I haven't read anything by him yet actually!).

Are you in favor of a bit of (obscure) references or do you think they should best be left out completely?

I'm asking you because it's something I've been wondering about; I do like the odd bit of obscure references without much of cliché - now that I feel I got the basics, the foundations of my political beliefs down, I want to start writing myself, and that's where the problem begins as the pop culture thing now presents itself as an issue in my direct activity.

Case in point, I'm currently writing (or want to start doing so in the next few weeks, at least) a short piece on human capital. That is, showing that "human capital" is not capital (by explaining what capital is, some passages on value theory might be necessary), and then asking the question, if it is not capital, what is it then? The answer lies in wage labor; human capital as defined in various economic textbooks appears under current economic relations as a use value (as an element of commodified labor), etc. Coming to the conclusion that since "human capital" only serves those who actually profit from it (as surplus value), education fees for example are just another piece in the puzzle of class antagonisms and therefore are to be opposed just as much as any other form of exploitation. (All the while taking the piss at bourgeois economists for not even knowing what capital is)

Now I want to throw a passage in there about the fetishism of economic categories, as human capital definitely is a fetishistic category - my pop culture comparison would be The Red Guy from the 90s cartoon show Cow and Chicken, who to me is the very embodiment of fetishism.1 Now, as a fan of 90s cartoons these references may be too obscure and therefore may do more harm than good.

  • 1. The Red Guy is the primary antagonist of the show, appearing in each episode in different roles and costumes - Cow and Chicken never recognize him nor do they ever get to know who he really is or what his ulterior goal is. We only know of The Red Guy what he presents to us in each episode, and technically we don't even know his name (he takes on names like Dr. Nopants in some episodes for example, but he is never addressed with his actual name), in short, he is a complete mystery and Cow and Chicken can and do only abstract from him as what he presents themselves as. If he is a doctor, they see a doctor; if he plays a pirate, they see him as a pirate - they judge him not by his essence but by his surface appearance
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An Coileach's picture
An Coileach
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Aug 2 2012 12:21

There's plenty of pop culture (if you can call it that) in Marx's writings. References to Frankenstein and Dracula, Balzac and things like that which most people nowadays wouldn't get. I'm not sure if your reference to a cartoon character would be a good idea if it's not fairly universally known though.

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Railyon's picture
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Aug 2 2012 12:27

Yeah, I know Marx had a lot of that but they're of a different quality ("classic" literature)... and the obscurity of the characters I refer to is actually what makes me hesitate. I don't want people to go "what the fuck is this guy smoking" any more than they would normally.

Though maybe it is sufficient to explain the character in a footnote like I did above - argh, I just don't know. I just thought that since a lot of people in the (young) communist milieu are, like me, a child of the 90s they'd get the occasional reference (making it more of a style preference than an issue of understanding). I'm fairly sure if I talked about Gundams and postmodern aspects of the Yandere stereotype most of the people on RedMarx would get it too lol.

Maybe I'm too hipster for all this.

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soc's picture
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Aug 2 2012 13:34
An Coileach wrote:
There's plenty of pop culture (if you can call it that) in Marx's writings. References to Frankenstein and Dracula, Balzac and things like that which most people nowadays wouldn't get. I'm not sure if your reference to a cartoon character would be a good idea if it's not fairly universally known though.

Since Marx and the 19th century the availability of culture, popular or otherwise has increased greatly. The only literature in Marx' time that was safe to refer to was the Bible. Today, Cow and Chicken can be linked from youtube, you can add a magnet link for the specific torrent, etc. Keeping the references up-to-date you can get away with less known references. Popular culture however widely available, and most of the people who is able to find a writing of a comrade on the internets, can also probably find out about the Red Guy in the Cow and Chicken.

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Choccy's picture
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Aug 2 2012 14:14

A strength of Fisher's Capitalist Realism is the pop culture references.

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Aug 2 2012 18:39

Yeah, pop culture references are great! go for it.

If you are worried about anyone not getting it, just put an explanation/YouTube link in the footnotes. And that's cool if you are writing stuff, feel free to post it to the library here, or let us know if you would like a blog

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Railyon's picture
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Aug 2 2012 21:43

So commies apparently like their pop culture references, huh?

And I thought that's why people thought Zizek sucked, haha.

I'm currently trying, or at least want to, get some people to co-write the piece. Maybe that would be an excellent opportunity to work with someone from the libcom boards though I initially thought of maybe one German comrade since I planned to write the piece in German (first because it is my first language and second because of the availability of sources, I have collected quotes from Marx, Kautsky, some lesser-known German Marxists, but also Harvey, Dauve, etc in English so I guess it's not skewed toward either language)

Don't know whether my writing would be any good in English... (and of course, there's always this nagging thought at the back of my head that there's that one-upmanship going on among Lefties and that I have to watch very, VERY carefully what I write because someone would come and point out to me that I didn't quite grasp this or that concept and it's basically all bullshit and whatnot... That's also the primary reason I've yet to write anything dealing in Marxian theory)

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Aug 2 2012 21:51

A member of TC branch here redid TLC's "No Scrubs" as "No Scabs". She also has redone a couple other pop songs as political songs. And then of course, the historical IWW redid tons of popular songs and made them their own. I think using pop culture is great. One of the reasons DSG was appealing.

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Aug 2 2012 22:08

References are nice when they come naturally to the author and reveal something about the author beyond the topic of the writing.

I tend to dislike it in films though, it's often a cheap trick to charm the audience. Whenever you get a reference you feel a bit special, like you just got a compliment. As with fake compliments however you feel bad when you realise it's not sincere and just a way to get in your good books sad

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Arbeiten's picture
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Aug 3 2012 09:58
Railyon wrote:
(and of course, there's always this nagging thought at the back of my head that there's that one-upmanship going on among Lefties and that I have to watch very, VERY carefully what I write because someone would come and point out to me that I didn't quite grasp this or that concept and it's basically all bullshit and whatnot... That's also the primary reason I've yet to write anything dealing in Marxian theory)

Aaaah the leftist dick waggle. Yeah one of the reasons I get put off putting pen to paper (that and being lazy).

I think 'pop culture' references are all fine and good. Critique of Everyday Life and all that. Would Benjamin's Arcades Project be an example of this done well?

I don't get annoyed with Zizek because he uses pop culture references, I get annoyed because he gets bogged down in them, going on and on about some shitty John Gresham novel nobody has ever read. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's a waste of time.

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Railyon's picture
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Aug 3 2012 10:48
Arbeiten wrote:
Aaaah the leftist dick waggle. Yeah one of the reasons I get put off putting pen to paper (that and being lazy).

I just read an article in the libcom library with a passage that goes like

Quote:
Björkhagengruppen criticises Marcel on the basis of partly different conditions. For instance, they argue that Marcel did not do a proper reading of Hegel and thus fails to preserve a distinction between the concepts of essence and appearance.

http://libcom.org/library/introduction-riff-raff-no-8

And then I think, oh come the fuck on... essence and appearance, fine and dandy, but I thought we left behind Hegel and the Leninist notion that you have to have studied his Logic of Science to understand Capital Vol 1? (I might even go a step further and say Lenin actually had no clue about Marx and the materialist dialectic he employed - mainly the distinction of "the dialectic describing the laws of movement of capitalism" (what Marx presumably meant by "turning Hegel upside down onto his feet") and Capitalism being an affirmation of the validity of the dialectical mode of thinking - distorting the whole thing into Dialectical Materialism which is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo)

But eh, I'm just ranting now...

By the way, if I were looking for co-authors on the human capital piece (which could be incorporated into a wider one dealing with neo-liberalism in general since human capital is "their big thing"), who do I have to stab to find someone? By the looks of it it seems like most people are either tangled up in their own projects or are reluctant to write something. I think I'll have to start somewhere though as it most likely won't be the last text I'll have to write and practice never hurts rite...