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niconorico's reviews
133 reviews
Capitalism and Disability: Selected Writings by Marta Russell by Marta Russell, Keith Rosenthal
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
"I'm very tired of being thankful for accessible toilets. If I have to be thankful for an accessible bathroom, when am I ever gonna be equal in the community?"
—Judith Heumann
We in the disabled community are still fighting for basic human rights in 2021. We still don't have the rights to life, liberty, or pursuit, and as always we are faced with trying to justify our right to exist over the deafening cries of the wealthy few who do. Writing in 2002, Mart Russell highlights the human rights disaster that exists for disabled people in the States while pointing out the ways in which capitalism produces the (still) prevailing ideology that we have no right to exist. This work says a lot that needed to be said about being disabled in a capitalist system, carrying on the critique that disability is defined in relation to the mode of production, but be warned that this topic is a dark one, the book does not shy from this.
Shout-out to Adrestia's Revolt for reading this and many other works on their YouTube channel.
Note: It is noteworthy that this book came prior to the boom in at-home disability care, and this context should be held in mind when the author speaks about this model of care as something liberatory. It did not quite work out that way, but this does not detract from the quality of the book on the whole.
—Judith Heumann
We in the disabled community are still fighting for basic human rights in 2021. We still don't have the rights to life, liberty, or pursuit, and as always we are faced with trying to justify our right to exist over the deafening cries of the wealthy few who do. Writing in 2002, Mart Russell highlights the human rights disaster that exists for disabled people in the States while pointing out the ways in which capitalism produces the (still) prevailing ideology that we have no right to exist. This work says a lot that needed to be said about being disabled in a capitalist system, carrying on the critique that disability is defined in relation to the mode of production, but be warned that this topic is a dark one, the book does not shy from this.
Shout-out to Adrestia's Revolt for reading this and many other works on their YouTube channel.
Note: It is noteworthy that this book came prior to the boom in at-home disability care, and this context should be held in mind when the author speaks about this model of care as something liberatory. It did not quite work out that way, but this does not detract from the quality of the book on the whole.
Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti
medium-paced
3.0
Great read for its target audience, which seems to be young leftists new to Marxism, Leninism, and the Workers' Republics. My primary complaint within that space is that this book provides a great deal of polemical scripts which reproduce an alienation even from other leftists, and this alienation is anything but revolutionary. Polemics is a specter that continues to haunt many vanguardists, just as it haunts society more broadly.
Outside of that audience, I think more rigorous research guidelines would have significantly strengthened Parenti's arguments. Many of his claims—as other reviewers point out—go unsupported, and the bulk are supported by (admittedly capitalist) news publications. This was a bizarre choice given that a good deal of these claims do have solid evidence out there for, which Ghodsee was able to dig up for her incredible work 'Why Women Have Better Sex Under Communism' when she touches on the same topics. This is just one example of where this has been done.
Ultimately, I think 3 stars is a bit harsh given this book is somewhat explicitly geared towards young leftists (more particularly new vanguardists), but I think it is justified in this rating in relation to other, better introductions to these topics: On misinformation, Manufacturing Consent; on life under state socialism, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism; on planned economies, Do Planned Economies Work?; on women's issues, Women Race & Class.
I hope the reader will consider consulting these works as well.
Outside of that audience, I think more rigorous research guidelines would have significantly strengthened Parenti's arguments. Many of his claims—as other reviewers point out—go unsupported, and the bulk are supported by (admittedly capitalist) news publications. This was a bizarre choice given that a good deal of these claims do have solid evidence out there for, which Ghodsee was able to dig up for her incredible work 'Why Women Have Better Sex Under Communism' when she touches on the same topics. This is just one example of where this has been done.
Ultimately, I think 3 stars is a bit harsh given this book is somewhat explicitly geared towards young leftists (more particularly new vanguardists), but I think it is justified in this rating in relation to other, better introductions to these topics: On misinformation, Manufacturing Consent; on life under state socialism, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism; on planned economies, Do Planned Economies Work?; on women's issues, Women Race & Class.
I hope the reader will consider consulting these works as well.
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
dark
informative
medium-paced
Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure, Roy Harris
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.5
The Essential Spinoza: Ethics and Related Writings by Baruch Spinoza, Michael L. Morgan, Samuel Shirley
challenging
slow-paced
2.25
Like a lot of folks, I was raised christian and was required to attend church long after I had renounced its doctrines. Spinoza had a similar experience. To both of us, it has long been clear that God exists insofar as they are believed to exist, and insofar as all reference to God is reference to Being—an interconnected unity of all Substance. Having been made aware of this agreement through one comrade and so many authors' mentions of Spinoza, this was required reading for me.
But even going into this read agreeing with the core of what the author presents did not lighten the load this book heaves on its readers in so many Proofs and Corrolaries. See, Spinoza, a Cartesian, has an obsession with the concept of Reason, particularly expressed through geometry. This obsession created a felt need for Spinoza to express his ideas in the form of geometric Proofs, Propositions, Corollaries and Scholisms, and this greatly detracts from the quality of the book. It has the misfortune of being designed as a textbook to be studied slowly and methodically under tutelage, and this textbook is over 300 years old, making it an absolute slog to get through.
In short, this can be an exhausting read. Maybe consider just reading the Propositions and/or a summary somewhere.
But even going into this read agreeing with the core of what the author presents did not lighten the load this book heaves on its readers in so many Proofs and Corrolaries. See, Spinoza, a Cartesian, has an obsession with the concept of Reason, particularly expressed through geometry. This obsession created a felt need for Spinoza to express his ideas in the form of geometric Proofs, Propositions, Corollaries and Scholisms, and this greatly detracts from the quality of the book. It has the misfortune of being designed as a textbook to be studied slowly and methodically under tutelage, and this textbook is over 300 years old, making it an absolute slog to get through.
In short, this can be an exhausting read. Maybe consider just reading the Propositions and/or a summary somewhere.
The Pathology of Normalcy by Erich Fromm
1.5
I'm being a bit harsh here, but among Fromm's works this one should be skipped. He is concerned with an important problem in these lectures, but contributes nothing to the discourse that isn't better found elsewhere.
Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0