I've often wondered who masterclass is for. It seems like it is exclusively made for California Liberal types, who want to loudly show off how educated they are, and how "tolerant" they are, but don't ever want to actually put in the effort of learning anything, and constantly blame "the red states" for causing every problem in their lives.
I'd usually assume that 'would not pay for it' means 'shit'. But that's not necessarily the case around here lol. So I'll ask. What did you think? What's/who's worth watching?
Liberals love nothing more than huffing their own farts circlejerking about “disinformation” to prove how smart and intelligent they are for only reading NYT opinion pieces on why genocide is good, actually
I don't think Masterclass is just political related courses
It seems to be for the average Californian office worker who primarily gets their knowledge about the world and history from podcasts and subscribes to the "hustle grindset" culture (which is what Masterclass is a part of)
i think it used to purport to offer educational material from real experts in some field, but by this point has devolved into letting famous people ramble in front of a camera for the benefit of a handful of diehard fans who will buy a subscription service to see one person.
Yeah the one time I ever considered getting Masterclass was when Tom Morello had one about how he does the weird shit he does with a guitar. But that seems pretty different from what they do now lol
These remind me of "The Great Courses" that they used to release as videos/audiobooks back in the 00s and 10s. Maybe they still do. The Great Courses, some of which I pirated out of curiosity, were often slower-paced and worse than your average Khan Academy video or random powerpoint presentation uploaded to youtube, but they were always taught by "critically acclaimed" professors (bourgeois best selling authors with good connections who happen to be tenured professors). The economics courses were of course just dismal and regurgitated nonsense about how "wall street and main street share common interests and shouldn't fight each other" in the middle of the 2008 crash.
i have access to a bunch of those on audiobook, via my public library and I've found some really good ones. But for every genuinely good lecture series on a topic like Ancient North America, there's like, 5 with titles like "wisdom of Europe's greatest generals" that's just utter slop for pseudo-intellectual chuds.
He's also said that the fall of the USSR was the greatest victory for socialism ever, which is absolutely deranged when you consider the misery it lead to in the post-Soviet states and the countries that were supported by them.
I recently read a book written in the 70s by some American Marxist and surprise surprise Chomsky was already much hated in the Marxist circles back then.
Has Chomsky ever written at length about Marxism? The most I've heard him say sounds indistinct from anything a liberal would say, like that Marxism is outdated, it's a model of 19th century capitalism that fails to analyze blah blah, and he'll even say stuff like Marxism has the same roots as fascism, or that Marxism is like a religion. The one thing that really baffled me is one time Chomsky said Marx devised an abstract model of capitalism, and that essentially capitalism is too complex to make into an abstract model and remain scientific. That's really perplexing that a supposed social scientist like Chomsky would say. What's a good alternative to modeling capitalism then, Noam? Nothing? Liberalism?
damn this is really good shit, and I've read a fair amount of parenti v chompsky pieces before.
And showing how obama was, far from being the lesser evil, actually a more effective evil because he could get away with things the republicans could never dream of? absolute gold
Edit: finished it, I didnt know a lot of this. Chomsky shitting on Aaron Swartz was a new low in my opinion of him. Quite a compendium of chomsky's long history of disappointment and palatiability to the ruling class
This is not new. By all accounts Chomsky is not physically or mentally able to discuss the current situation. Finkelstein said as much - he said in an interview a couple weeks ago that he reached out to Chomsky for moral clarity right after the 7th, but he was unavailable so Norman had to figure things out on his own. And the way he discussed it, it definitely was not that Chomsky was like off on a beach somewhere or wasn’t returning his calls, definitely implied that Chomsky was not able to respond.
Given that Chomsky has been pretty good about Palestine for his whole career, it seems much more plausible that he’s incapacitated and not just like, choosing not to comment on it.
okay thanks for clarifying, seriously. For all his faults, perhaps " I hope he chokes" was a little too severe, and I'm happy to learn this wasn't new and he wasnt simply ignoring the situation. I too heard mr. Finkelstein mention being unable to reach him and together with this post, assumed the worst.
I definitely take back the "hope he chokes" bit, but not because he's ancient, more because this masterclass bs was actually made the better part of a year ago, his current absence is more likely health related.