Contradictions of Capitalist Society and Culture

Dialectics of Love and Lying

Series: 

Author:
Raju J Das
Love and truth are important aspects of culture. Signifying the crisis of capitalist culture in the contemporary world are their opposites, i.e. hate and lying, respectively. There is rampant lying for ideological/political purposes. There is also an increasing absence of genuine love, i.e., love as caring and solidarity, which, under certain conditions, takes romantic forms. Ideological-political lying is connected to the corruption of love, with its confinement to the private sphere of individuals and consequent isolation from the wider unequal society. This connection is via capitalism. On the one hand, capitalism resorts to ideological-political lying to cover up its contradictions that cause alienation/suffering of the masses. Lying and alienation/suffering are not conducive to genuine love in society. On the other hand, a crisis-ridden capitalism produces the right-wing politics of lying (‘post-truth’ politics). This is also a politics of hatred (or, ‘post-love, or, anti-love’) against minorities, democrats and socialists, a politics that is justified by lies about these subjects. The fight against hate-politics and post-truth politics must be part of the fight for a post-capitalist world (socialist democracy), imagined as a truthful and caring world.
Copyright Year:
2023
E-Book (PDF)
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-54000-2
Publication:
15 May 2023
Hardback
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-53997-6
Publication:
18 May 2023
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Raju J Das, Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, is Professor at York University, Toronto. His research interests include Marxist political economy and social theory. His recent books are Marxist Class Theory for a Skeptical World, and Marx’s Capital, Capitalism, and Limits to the State.
Acknowledgements

List of Figures and Tables

1 Introduction
 1 Love

 2 Lying

 3 Outline


2 Love and Politics: Some Existing Views
 1 Introduction

 2 What Is Love?

 3 Why do People Fall in Love?

 4 Consequences and Politics of Love

 5 A Critique of Existing Views on Love

  Appendix: Neuroscience and Love


3 Towards a Marxist Theory of Love: Trans-historical Aspects
 1 Introduction

 2 Love as a Social-emergent Effect of a Mental and Physical Connection

 3 Love Is More Than a Relation between Two Individuals

 4 Love Is a Conscious ‘Labour Process’, an Activity

 5 Conclusion


4 Towards a Marxist Theory of Love: Love in Class Society and in Socialism
 1 Introduction

 2 Love in Pre-capitalist Class Society

 3 Love and Capitalist Economy
3.1 Capitalist Property Relation, and Commodity Fetishism

3.2 Alienation


 4 Love and Class Consciousness in Capitalism

 5 Love, and Gender and Other Forms of Oppression in Capitalism

 6 Love in a Socialist Society (and in the Anti-capitalist Movement)

 7 Conclusion


5 The Post-truth Condition in Capitalist Society: Its Major Characteristics
 1 Introduction

 2 The Truth About Post-truth
2.1 Post-truth on a Spectrum

2.2 Lying in Post-truth Condition

2.3 Facts vs Feelings in Post-truth

2.4 Post-truth Relativism and Attitude to Truth

2.5 Post-truth Attitude towards Experts

2.6 Immorality and Demagogy of Post-truth


 3 Philosophy of Post-truth: Postmodernism as an Ideological Precursor

 4 Politics of Post-truth: Post-truth and Fascistic Tendencies

 5 Conclusion


6 Towards a Marxist Theory of the Post-truth Condition
 1 Introduction

 2 Historical Materialism and Political Lying

 3 Contradictions of Capitalism
3.1 Fundamental Contradictions

3.2 ‘Conjunctural’ Contradictions


 4 Contradictions of Capitalist Imperialism

 5 Opposition to Regulation, and Capitalist Politics

 6 Capitalist Production of Lies as a Commodity

 7 Media of Lies as Capitalist Commodity

 8 Lying by the ‘Victims’ of Capitalism

 9 Conclusion


7 Post-truth Phenomenon: a Concrete Study with a Reference to India
 1 Introduction

 2 Traits of India’s Post-truth Politics
2.1 Ideological and Political Lies/Half-Truths

2.2 Accumulation of Lies by Means of Suppression of Dissent

2.3 Class-Blindness of Right-Wing Post-truthers


 3 Explaining India’s Post-truth Phenomenon
3.1 Economic Misery

3.2 Countering Political Action by the Masses

3.3 Crisis of Bourgeois Politics

3.4 Capitalism’s Fascistic Agencies


 4 A Critique of the Right-Wing Post-truth Politics and Thinking in India
4.1 The Right-Wing’s Denigration of Dissent

4.2 Culturalism and Communalism in Right-Wing Post-truth Politics


 5 Conclusion


8 Conclusion
 1 Brief Summary

 2 Further Discussions
2.1 Explanations

2.2 Political Implications


Bibliography

Index

All interested in capitalist culture and its crisis, and in capitalist economy and politics. Anyone interested in post-truth politics, Far Right, fascism, hate-politics, and in love and human relationships.
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