Ways of Seeing is a 1972 television series of (four) 30-minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger and producer Mike Dibb.

  • 30 Posts
  • 82 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: December 29th, 2021
  • culprit@lemmy.mlOPtoMemes@lemmy.ml•super plumbers
    81·
    22 days ago

    According to American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Kristen Ghodsee, efforts to institutionalize the “double genocide thesis”, or the moral equivalence between the Nazi Holocaust (race murder) and the victims of communism (class murder), in particular the push at the beginning of the 2007–2008 financial crisis for commemoration of the latter in Europe, can be seen as the response by economic and political elites to fears of a leftist resurgence in the face of devastated economies and extreme social inequalities in both the Eastern and Western worlds as the result of the excesses of neoliberal capitalism. She says that any discussion of the achievements by Communist states, including literacy, education, women’s rights, and social security is usually silenced, and any discourse on the subject of communism is focused almost exclusively on Joseph Stalin’s crimes and the “double genocide thesis”, an intellectual paradigm summed up as such: “1) any move towards redistribution and away from a completely free market is seen as communist; 2) anything communist inevitably leads to class murder; and 3) class murder is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust.” By linking all leftist and socialist ideals to the excesses of Stalinism, Ghodsee posits that the elites hope to discredit and marginalize all political ideologies that could “threaten the primacy of private property and free markets”.

    Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by a lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist’s power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely captain of a team

    https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf

  • culprit@lemmy.mlOPtoMemes@lemmy.ml•super plumbers
    234·
    23 days ago

    “We have liberated Europe from fascism, but they will never forgive us for it.”

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_genocide_theory

    Scholars have criticized the double genocide theory as a form of Holocaust trivialization.

    spoiler

    According to American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Kristen Ghodsee, efforts to institutionalize the “double genocide thesis”, or the moral equivalence between the Nazi Holocaust (race murder) and the victims of communism (class murder), in particular the push at the beginning of the 2007–2008 financial crisis for commemoration of the latter in Europe, can be seen as the response by economic and political elites to fears of a leftist resurgence in the face of devastated economies and extreme social inequalities in both the Eastern and Western worlds as the result of the excesses of neoliberal capitalism. She says that any discussion of the achievements by Communist states, including literacy, education, women’s rights, and social security is usually silenced, and any discourse on the subject of communism is focused almost exclusively on Joseph Stalin’s crimes and the “double genocide thesis”, an intellectual paradigm summed up as such: “1) any move towards redistribution and away from a completely free market is seen as communist; 2) anything communist inevitably leads to class murder; and 3) class murder is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust.” By linking all leftist and socialist ideals to the excesses of Stalinism, Ghodsee posits that the elites hope to discredit and marginalize all political ideologies that could “threaten the primacy of private property and free markets”.

  • culprit@lemmy.mltoMemes@lemmy.ml•I'm a leftist
    1·
    1 month ago

    This is American Exceptionalism, and I won’t stand for it. This is like that “they trained them wrong on purpose … as a joke” meme. The ruling class has subdued many people with a maelstrom of bullshit politics, and the only sound strategy is to shatter these exceptionalist brain worms and actually do real analysis of the political economy.