This small essay by Janine Brodie called “Power and Politics” has several other issues, but their most frustrating one is their outright DISMISSAL of Marxist class analysis for the stupidest reasons. Economic determinism? I guess if you yearned to softly dismiss marx by misrepresenting him.
God I fucking hate poli sci majors.
The previous page:
The next one:
I’m not the brightest crayon in the box but is it just me or does Doctor Brodie somehow make politics and power some sort of vague, unsolvable mystery? Like fr I don’t want just an echochamber of nodding heads plz help am I in the wrong?
I need help putting words to my issues with it.
Me thinks Janine Brodie has only read the Communist Manifesto…
I don’t really have an excuse as to why it took me so long to read this thread, but I finally did and I wanted to thank you for tagging me. Your comment (and all your comments) is very useful for me as a student and future professor, especially that bit about being a Marxist in academia. If the paper is not about Marx directly I really do have to censor myself quite a bit by talking about Marxist ideas and views but not referencing Marxists themselves for fear of being penalized.
To me, this piece by Brodie comes across as Political Science 101. It’s incredibly status quo and doesn’t say much of anything outside of what is already well established. I’m not going to speculate what year OP is in, but this is not out of the realm of first year PoliSci. While I don’t recall ever reading anything by Brodie in any of my classes, I’ve read and been lectured to in the same language. She is also a Canadian academic so maybe thats also why I am sensing severe overlap.
Glad you found the discussion helpful.
I realise this was a month ago now. Can’t believe I’ve not posted for that long!