>Heavens no. Me? I've spent the last 16 years writing about finance, labor
>markets, capital flows, and all that other base-ish stuff.
Yeah, I had that partially in mind while I wrote. I was thinking, "What the Christ is he talking about?", but I figured it was just your rhetoric vs. Yoshie.
>But that doesn't mean that I think it's the only important thing around.
Yup. I agree. But it's among the most important of things around, in my "unprofessional" opinion.
>But anyone who wants to change the relations of production (as well as
>what's produced) has to understand how and why people think and feel the
>way they do.
And I agree, but I do think there's a strong tendency "out there" to go postie and just ignore or diminish the importance of class, money, etc.
>And to do that, things like the Simpsons are important. A lot of hardass
>Marxists don't agree, dismissing it as epiphenomenal fluff.
I guess I'm just an oatmeal-assed Marxist: I don't dismiss it tout coup, but I don't see why it should be privileged either.
>As the Old Man said somewhere, when an ideology grips the mind of the
>masses, it becomes a material force.
Sure, and I'd rather people concentrated more on where that ideology comes from, who's behind it, and why than just the ideology's "face" by itself.
I'm trying to see that this is Something Really Important I'm being told, but I'm afraid I just don't get it. Finding out why animated cartooning bound for North America, say, gets done in Asia instead of in North America or why those cartoons never seem to say certain things, seems more important to me than why Lisa Simpson wears pearls and what that's trying to convey (or the meaning of an actress/singer's navel).
>Doug
Todd the Philistine
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