What will be done?
Europe today is a continent pockmarked by conflict. From Bristol to Barcelona one can see the outlines of struggle being waged by political parties and labor unions as the noose of austerity mercilessly draws tighter. What is then to be said of Sweden, and of the swedish Left party?
Perhaps some guidance can be found in one of Jonas Sjöstedt’s recent travels. As the European troubles head off into the next act, the leader of the swedish Left party recently visited a Cloetta factory outside of Gävle. Cloetta, maker of many classic types of swedish candy, recently decided to move its production line out of the country. Sjöstedt, distraught at this recent example of the rampant ”greed” of profit-maximizing corporations (as if there were other kinds?) promises to never eat the particular brand of candy again. Meanwhile, as the social democratic model itself rots away into nothingness in country after country, Ida Gabrielsson – former leader of the party’s youth organization – begins her newspaper career by writing an editorial on how the swedish state ought to solve the housing crisis by simply building more houses. A sign of the times, to be sure. Were one so inclined it’d be easy to imagine a fitting score for these two swan songs of social democracy: either in the quiet humming of french spy drones zipping over poor suburbs or in the screams of british Eurofighters who – togheter with aircraft carriers, submarines, and an army private security goons – ostensibly protect the olympic games from ”terrorism”. The gangreous, stinking death of social democracy seems irrevocably joined at the hip with the cancerous growth of the surveillance and security apparatuses, and Sweden is certainly no slouch in this regard. One only has to look back at the passing of the IPRED act to see how little democracy truly matters in Sweden when put against ever more pressing ”security concerns”.
History repeats itself first as tragedy then as farce. If the tragedy today is the sight of social democratic parties all over Europe completely powerless to stop the razing of the social democratic model (or themselves eagerly wielding the neoliberal sledgehammer), the farce in the tireless repetition of this sordid play. The parlimentary left today seems kin to the shambling zombies out of a John Romero movie: ponderously repeating the same set of stunted, jerky movements, as if by doing the gestures they did in life they could perhaps recall what it meant to be truly alive. Listening to the rhetoric of the swedish Left and reading its various promises and grand claims, one has a hard time distinguishing them from the pre-election promises of PASOK. They too made the point that they were fundamentally opposed to further privatizations and deep cuts. As we all know by now, things did not turn out quite that way. Today, reflexive distrust of politicians seems more naturalized and wide-spread than any feudal religiosity, and yet the promises we hear today go no further than cries of ”It’ll turn out better this time, honest!”. Yes, it’s unfortunate that political promises often go unfulfilled. Yes, it’s sad that this keynesian siren song has yet to produce results elsewhere. But this time will be *different*, which is why you should still vote for us. It’s as if the hidden message is that prior to today every leftist politician had been secretly crossing their fingers behind their back, and as long as you keep your eye on their hands to prevent them from doing so again everything will somehow go back to normal.
Why are we today left with so many lofty promises, so many tacky slogans, and so few positive results? This is not generally not a question that anyone dares to ask, let alone answer. Instead, all we get is a repulsive diet of more lofty promises mixed with populistic, sappy outrage at ”greedy” conservatives and bankers. To be fair, this is not a problem that lies solely with the swedish Left party, quite the opposite. But the reason that all it can produce seems to be sound and fury lies in the fact that, much like the labor movement, its current organizational form and dominant ideology is no longer capable of achieving the goals it has set for itself. One cannot dispute that the swedish labor movement achieved real results through its strategy of compromise and ”keeping the peace”, but neither can one deny that this time has definitely ended. If one wants to get back into the fight it is not enough to arm oneself solely with cheap moralism about ”greedy bankers” and ”irresponsible capitalists”. The question needs to be asked: what allowed those old strategies to work, and what happened between then and now that rendered them ineffectual? Once this sort question is posed, the answer often isn’t hard to find; Leo Panitch is one of the people who have written at length on the sort of structural changes that are of concern here.
It’s easy to say that the swedish state simply needs to build more housing to resolve the housing shortage. It’s far more problematic to ask why this hasn’t been done: this, after all, runs the risk that you’ll find an answer that you don’t want to hear or simply cannot afford politically. Indeed, what does one do if the solution to the housing shortage is one where the old parlimentary model proves insufficient, if the actions that need to be taken are not conducive to immediately winning the next election? If one traces the lineage of the Left party back to its roots, one finds an organization that used to exist in more spheres of life than simply the parlimentary one. A political party that mobilizes, educates and organizes people both in their homes, in their schools and on their workplaces has a far greater potential to achieve political change, and, much more importantly, it is also insulated against the corrosive ebb and flow of parlimentary tides. In stark contrast to this, the modern Left party lives and dies to the jittery heartbeat of push polls and focus groups.
Many people took the financial meltdown as a sign that neoliberal policy would finally be defeated, that people would open their eyes to the true horror lurking behind the glitzy presentations about freedom of choice and the market ”effectiveness” siren songs. Today we can safely say that things turned out in quite the opposite way. The timetable of austerity has been accelerated immensely, and through it we have a parlimentary left that has been completely cowed by crisis, content to lower its expectations and making only ”realistic” demands. Of course, the authors of this particular brand of ”realism” are none other than the very same gentlemen who caused this financial catastrophe in the first place. And what does Sjöstedt actually say about Cloetta’s decision to relocate its production? He points out that Cloetta were still making a profit in Gävle and that the move *wasn’t necessary*, that the wages asked by swedish workers – while higher than others – would not and did not totally impede Cloetta’s accumulation of profit. Sjöstedt places himself in the weird position of trying to defend Cloetta’s interests with more fervor than Cloetta itself does; it is all somewhat reminiscient of the old factory worker who has just been laid off, desperately trying to convince his employer that he can still work, that he can still generate a profit. This avenue is generally hopeless: it simply *isn’t true* that the old worker can work hard enough and fast enough to justify his wage and benefits in the face of a younger temp worker doing the same tasks for less than half the pay. Of course the boss is greedy, and of course Cloetta tries to maximize its profits. This is all in their respective job description, and so it will remain no matter the personal qualities of the people in charge. Cheap moralism simply gets you nowhere in this situation.
The only constructive thing to do is precisely to NOT identify with the goals and interests of the entity in question, and establish your own logic (one opposed to wage labor, for example) as the dominant one, as the logic that should rule the production and distribution of goods and services. The worker should not be paid by how much profit he generates; rather he should be paid because a society where people are left to starve is fundamentally inhuman. Of course, as history teaches us, such an imposition requires some measure of (political) force for it to have a chance of being successful. But unless you are directly prepared to challenge Cloetta’s right to make a profit, any arguments about profit that you can field are bound to fall flat. We should not forget that during the majority of the Left party’s history, this was an explicit, central element of its politics: the rejection of wage labor *as such*. Yet, now that the swedish social democratic party is thoroughly rotten, the Left party has eagerly recycled its old ideology and mannerisms as well as managing a pale simulacra of earlier social democratic political programs. However, the swedish social democratic party contracted this rot for a reason: nothing could be more foolish than to expect to be able to don its moldy trappings without falling prey to the very same contagion.
At a lecture in Uppsala I had the chance to personally ask Sjöstedt how he and his party planned to avoid falling prey to the same sort of political implosion that has struck many other european left parties who have talked the talk but failed to walk the walk. It was obvious the question startled him, and I did not get a coherent answer in reply. I will therefore try to draw up some basic outlines of the changes that are necessary for a Left party that wants to avoid the choice between either the slow, lingering death of growing irrelevancy or the remarkably quick alternative in the form of electoral collapse following a string of broken promises.
Firstly, the Left party needs to abandon this pitiful ”realism” that guides its policy today. The current campaign of the youth organization within the party is very telling in this regard. It’s name translates into something akin to ”The Precarious Generation”, and it tells of how the youth of today is torn between growing debts and rampant insecurity in the face of a ”flexible” job market and a wilting social safety net. All true, of course. Yet, this campaign represents nothing but the most base form of political opportunism: it correctly points out the horrors of today’s job market and the crippling anxiety and insecurity that follows in its wake, but it does so only so it can wax nostalgic about the old keynesian ”golden age” of social democracy. The welfare state is being dismantled, we are told, by the rampant greed of ”bankers” and ”conservatives”, and we only need to vote the right way to turn the trend, rewind the clock, raise the taxes and reinstate the class compromise. As tempting as this prospect might be, at least to some, it still does not change the fact that this ”analysis” is a joke. The collapse of social democracy cannot be placed at the feet of a few people who happen to be more greedy than most, nor are the vast structural changes to the economy and labor market of the past sixty years the ”fault” of this or that person. Reinstating reflationary keynesian policy in today’s world is not simply a matter of flipping a switch, nor is it not a matter of wheter you ”want to do it” or not.
Wistfully reminiscing about social democracy in the old days will not bring the structural conditions back that allowed it to exist in the first place, and were you to try to re-enact it in Sweden today you would experience severe capital flight as well as a host of other problems. The way to prevent capital flight is of course through capital controls, but this runs head first into the brick wall that is the European Union, not to mention various other international treaties Sweden is a part of. So then, does this nostalgia about social democracy signal a real political will to take on the international community, to openly buck the European Union and the German consensus, a willingness to accept and live with the severe trade sanctions that would inevitably be placed on a rogue country trying to break free of this system of free trade? No, it is simply cowardly political opportunism of the worst sort. Were the people behind the campaign to be given a popular mandate they would be in a mind to keep their promises for a couple of minutes until they realized the gravity of the political costs associated with them, after which they would simply resign to cutting more and cutting deep.
The thing to do here is to abandon social democracy and its unstable class compromise altogheter. It simply does not and will not work under the conditions we find ourselves in. Yet, the Left party has so thoroughly surrendered itself to the narrow intellectual horizons imposed by its enemies that today even a stolen, thoroughly censored and completely anemic social democratic political program must seem like an almost unspeakably radical course of action to its leadership. This simply will not do. It is no longer a matter of wheter to settle for the devil you know or risking it all for a chance at the jackpot, as in the popular game show ”Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”. The problem is that this safe, boring, comfortable social democracy is no longer a fallback option, and one can either resign oneself to whatever devil-take-the-hindmost society that will shortly follow, or one can dare to retake the authorship of the future. We need a form of politics that can actually work, but it will not come from the Left party as long as it cannot muster up the courage to act rather than simply react to changes imposed by others by means of hostile populism and infantile nostalgia.
One only needs to go to a party function to see this dysfunction manifest itself. The Left party still sings the internationale and various other old songs at its gatherings, it still has portraits of Marx on some of its walls, and so on. But in the hands of party members these rituals and callbacks take on the tone of cynical mockeries: the songs are still sung, but the idea that people actually *believed* in them at some point is met with nervous or derisive laughter. Today’s Left party inherits or steals its traditions; it’s almost impossible to imagine that at one point it still had the power to CREATE them. The day – if it ever comes – that the Left party and parties like it retake the right to create politics will also mark the day where one finally see the creation of new songs, songs that are every bit as filled with beauty and meaning as any classic you’d care to name. As things are currently, however, one cannot help but imagine a look of consternation from Marx’s cracked canvas up on that wall, as I’m sure the man himself would have been aghast at seeing just how empty and hypocritical the rituals invoked in his name have become.
Secondly, the Left party must find new ways of organizing itself and the people it supposedly seeks to reach out to. As was implied earlier, at one point SKP (short for the swedish communist party, the original name of what eventually became today’s Left party) existed in people’s workplaces and in their social lives, and this allowed it to effect meaningful change and be a real threat regardless of parlimentary success. While the social democratic party still retains at least some pale shadow of its former organizational pull in the swedish worker’s movement, the Left party’s connection to anything other than the next election result has completely and utterly atrophied. Given that parlimentary means are more and more limited even in the sense of what sort of economic instruments are available once you *do* get in power, an alternate means of organization is not just a question of survival but it also presents perhaps the only way to effect the sort of changes that people want. While this is a topic that is far too serious for me to deal with here, one thing should be made clear: the organizational form itself has to be new. How else to reach out to and engage the growing population of fractured and precarious temporary workers? A simple trade union approach will not work here, nor should we settle for anything of that sort. The marginalized, alienated and the precarious have to be brought to bear somehow, for what hope of progressive change do we otherwise have?
Moreover, if one reads the autobiographies of people active during SKP’s heyday, it’s clear that it was by its nature a very different beast. New members had to go through a political education that included a very broad reading list, seminars, and very active discussion groups. Today, when the party membership consists more of academics than stevedores, the level of political education within the party is nothing if not abysmal. Party members are not required to know anything about, say, economics, nor does the party try very hard to help educate those who are still interested in figuring out the inner workings of the current political economy. It is simply impossible to achieve radical political change from a position of ignorance; all one can muster from such a lowly perch is cheap populism and nothing more. In closing: whatever the specifics, the Left party needs to regain its institutional capacity to act as an educator, and whatever organizational form it assumes must also be able to transcend the ever growing limitations associated with merely organizing workers inside their workplace. So far neoliberalism has been very adept at fracturing workers both through the way the work is structured and through the growing precarity of employment itself: if this is a battle we cannot well expect to win on their terms, it is up to us to shift the battle to a terrain of our choosing. One only needs to look at the dwindling and narrow-minded labor unions to see the heavy price of failure in this regard.
With all that said, the original question still remains: what will be done? My intention is not to defend the Left party or to frame it as merely a matter of time before it comes around. Rather, this has been a (far too incomplete) effort to establish the ground rules, the most basic challenges that need to be overcome for any european parlimentary left party who hopes to hold onto political relevancy. Is it then likely that we will see a development of this sort? I’m not an optimist in this regard, far from it. It can certainly be said that the swedish Left party finds itself in a slightly better tactial position than, say, the british Labour party, but this is hardly high praise. Institutions are merely tools however: their further survival should always be a question of usefulness, not sentimentality.
We have inherited the institutions that be from our predecessors. Our task is simple: either to make them work, or to give them the burial they deserve. Perhaps there exist the space for truly progressive politics among some parts of the current european parlimentary left. If not, it may very well be that only the loose earth of a freshly turned grave will allow the seeds of the new to take root. Either way we have our work cut out for us.
EmanuelaOrlandi posted:england isn't europe
please do not interrupt the recovery of the british isles from its occupants with pedantry, thank you
EmanuelaOrlandi posted:england isn't europe
same, but turkey
discipline posted:do you think things would change w/r/t the left's possibilities in sweden if the EU goes through a serious crisis this year? do you think there's any chance they would have a viable solution if they were voted in or is the left just totally unprepared in this regard?
right now theres absolutely no viable solutions to be had. none. the left being voted in here in sweden would do the same economic game as all the othe rparties because there's just no other choice.
if you look at SYRIZA in greece they either will have to adapt to austerity or risk a complete break from The Markets and all that. like the available flexibility in this system is almost completely gone, you can either walk the walk or you can abandon the system in some way or another. its a completely thankless task and one that i think is basically incompatible with fishing for maximum votes. you literally cannot make these sort of changes if your only connection to people's lives come in the form of a name on a ballot every four years. you have to be in people's everyday lives and on their workplace and so on for it to have a prayer of succeeding.
what will happen if greece backs out of the eurozone? you're basically going to have to reinvent the whole economic and social fabric of society, or something close to it. you simply will have to do this because the old social and economic configuration will be COMPLETELY unable to deal with povertry etc in a greece outside the eurozone and isolated economically. how do you go about reinventing society itself? its not an easy task at all, and I dont think SYRIZA is up for it, and I CERTAINLY know that basically no other left party whatsoever is up to it.
its basically like that anecdote zizek likes, about a guy propositioning his female friend for sex every time they meet. one day she actually just goes "oh ok" and begins taking off her pants and the guy is in a total panic, he just isnt ready for it actually happening. the left is literally that guy. its easy to whine about how the welfare state is being dismantled and so on but when your pants are down and you have to act, well, you suddenly have to do something else than just talk big. actually building socialism is like the worst nightmare for every socialist party.
*
but yeah social democracy has been effectively killed by the latest crisis and none of the old left-liberal parties know how to react to it, or even acknowledge it. it's really interesting how the leftist political mechanisms have been universally eroded or discarded since the start of the neoliberal era and most of the left are, essentially, starting anew.
Tinkzorg posted:its basically like that anecdote zizek likes, about a guy propositioning his female friend for sex every time they meet. one day she actually just goes "oh ok" and begins taking off her pants and the guy is in a total panic, he just isnt ready for it actually happening. the left is literally that guy. its easy to whine about how the welfare state is being dismantled and so on but when your pants are down and you have to act, well, you suddenly have to do something else than just talk big. actually building socialism is like the worst nightmare for every socialist party.
seriously, this is an anecdote he uses? jesus fucking christ
futurewidow posted:seriously, this is an anecdote he uses? jesus fucking christ
its from a humorous soviet movie so that makes it okay. seriously. no slav-shaming in my thread.
futurewidow posted:Tinkzorg posted:its basically like that anecdote zizek likes, about a guy propositioning his female friend for sex every time they meet. one day she actually just goes "oh ok" and begins taking off her pants and the guy is in a total panic, he just isnt ready for it actually happening. the left is literally that guy. its easy to whine about how the welfare state is being dismantled and so on but when your pants are down and you have to act, well, you suddenly have to do something else than just talk big. actually building socialism is like the worst nightmare for every socialist party.
seriously, this is an anecdote he uses? jesus fucking christ
the analogy is apropos and completely accurate but doesn't elucidate exactly why the left, when in a position of power, is afraid to take action.
the left's impotency and lack of action stems from their refusal to acknowledge they are nothing more than a reactionary nationalistic movement at the core. that being a political ideology with the sole platform of opposing transnational capital and neoliberalism, is to effectively be a nationalistic movement. once the left reconciles with the conservative right, and the ideologies - which are really the same in nature - merge together as one, we will see real actual progression w/r/t leftist political action
Tinkzorg posted:futurewidow posted:seriously, this is an anecdote he uses? jesus fucking christ
its from a humorous soviet movie so that makes it okay. seriously. no slav-shaming in my thread.
sorry tink
AmericanNazbro posted:the analogy is apropos and completely accurate but doesn't elucidate exactly why the left, when in a position of power, is afraid to take action.
the left's impotency and lack of action stems from their refusal to acknowledge they are nothing more than a reactionary nationalistic movement at the core. that being a political ideology with the sole platform of opposing transnational capital and neoliberalism, is to effectively be a nationalistic movement. once the left reconciles with the conservative right, and the ideologies - which are really the same in nature - merge together as one, we will see real actual progression w/r/t leftist political action
i broadly agree, this is essentially what the parlimentary left has more or less become. it still brandishes the same symbols and speaks the same sort of language that its more radical predecessors did but while the form is the same the content has been drained completely.
but i think that even if you do want something more than just this sort of moralistic return to a time before the social democratic fall, it just isnt that simple. building socialism seems nice in theory. the actual reality of it is harsh and uncomfortable, however. even if you on some level believe that you want to do it, in reality you more often than not want to keep your job as a high paid academic writing all these oh-so-subversive marxist papers on what is really just a bunch of irrelevant bullshit.
revolution is great when it happens over there, but me!? I got kids to take care of and we finally moved into a nice neighborhood and we have a mortgage to pay off, Im sorry bro im gonna have to take a rain check on this whole social revolution thing!!!
futurewidow posted:if the left doesnt have the balls to fuck then they're practically women
i dont think thats how you should read that example tbh
Tinkzorg posted:futurewidow posted:if the left doesnt have the balls to fuck then they're practically women
i dont think thats how you should read that example tbh
the left needs viagra!! and that viagra is Facism! hop in!
futurewidow posted:wow tink ur really blowin the lid off thsi shit
thanks, i like to "keep it real"
aerdil posted:can u please change away from an anime avatar tinkzorg, i like to foster an anime free zone for my browsing experience
i knew someone was going to complain about this.
aerdil posted:can u please change away from an anime avatar tinkzorg, i like to foster an anime free zone for my browsing experience
i decided to meet u halfway
Doug posted:Tinkzorg posted:futurewidow posted:if the left doesnt have the balls to fuck then they're practically women
i dont think thats how you should read that example tbh
the left needs viagra!! and that viagra is Facism! hop in!
viagra doesnt actually work for most young ppl who have problems with erectile dysfunction because ethe problem is not in the peen0r but rather in the physical characteristics of the subject's brain that have been altered through too much internet porn use
not to imply that the context of the anecdote was one of the person not being "man enough" or something at all along those lines, im just worried that youre otherizing ppl based on faulty premises here m8
Tinkzorg posted:Doug posted:Tinkzorg posted:futurewidow posted:if the left doesnt have the balls to fuck then they're practically women
i dont think thats how you should read that example tbh
the left needs viagra!! and that viagra is Facism! hop in!
viagra doesnt actually work for most young ppl who have problems with erectile dysfunction because ethe problem is not in the peen0r but rather in the physical characteristics of the subject's brain that have been altered through too much internet porn use
not to imply that the context of the anecdote was one of the person not being "man enough" or something at all along those lines, im just worried that youre otherizing ppl based on faulty premises here m8
sorry
Tinkzorg posted:AmericanNazbro posted:the analogy is apropos and completely accurate but doesn't elucidate exactly why the left, when in a position of power, is afraid to take action.
the left's impotency and lack of action stems from their refusal to acknowledge they are nothing more than a reactionary nationalistic movement at the core. that being a political ideology with the sole platform of opposing transnational capital and neoliberalism, is to effectively be a nationalistic movement. once the left reconciles with the conservative right, and the ideologies - which are really the same in nature - merge together as one, we will see real actual progression w/r/t leftist political actioni broadly agree, this is essentially what the parlimentary left has more or less become. it still brandishes the same symbols and speaks the same sort of language that its more radical predecessors did but while the form is the same the content has been drained completely.
but i think that even if you do want something more than just this sort of moralistic return to a time before the social democratic fall, it just isnt that simple. building socialism seems nice in theory. the actual reality of it is harsh and uncomfortable, however. even if you on some level believe that you want to do it, in reality you more often than not want to keep your job as a high paid academic writing all these oh-so-subversive marxist papers on what is really just a bunch of irrelevant bullshit.
revolution is great when it happens over there, but me!? I got kids to take care of and we finally moved into a nice neighborhood and we have a mortgage to pay off, Im sorry bro im gonna have to take a rain check on this whole social revolution thing!!!
this criticism of the first world left, while correct, is pretty shallow in that it doesn't offer an explanation as to why there were and weren't political movements in the first world. while i do agree that revolutionary potential is tied directly to material conditions, we are rapidly approaching a scenario where these material conditions - where radical politics will be seen as a realistic alternative - will be met. it's a very real possibility, more likely than not, that we will have a paradigm shift this century, and within the next 10-20 years after increasing wealth inequality and complete & repeated failures of capitalism
this was something that i had in the back of my mind when i was writing that post and something that i always think about, being a first worlder myself and always utterly disgusted by the first world left on a daily basis - every single time i read about OWS or whatever "practice protestors" (like the one's in FW's thread) i see pop up, that have no real ideological basis behind the movement. where the protests aren't a means to an end, but the end itself, in that it's a cathartic release from general malaise w/r/t socioeconomic conditions and afterwards everyone goes home feeling accomplished, while accomplishing nothing {imagine i put the zizek quote about this here so we can have a circle jerk thread posting zizek quotes at each other to build feelings of comradery}
futurewidow posted:if the left doesnt have the balls to fuck then they're practically women
we've got someone preaching the heteronormative dichotomy. mods? mods??
AmericanNazbro posted:this was something that i had in the back of my mind when i was writing that post and something that i always think about, being a first worlder myself and always utterly disgusted by the first world left on a daily basis - every single time i read about OWS or whatever "practice protestors" (like the one's in FW's thread) i see pop up, that have no real ideological basis behind the movement. where the protests aren't a means to an end, but the end itself, in that it's a cathartic release from general malaise w/r/t socioeconomic conditions and afterwards everyone goes home feeling accomplished, while accomplishing nothing
hm, i see where you're coming from but i don't entirely agree. there isn't a strong ideological basis, sure, but I think protests normalize the idea of taking action/voicing discontent outside of the parliamentary system. there is also a big difference between the quebec protests have been ongoing since February & peaking at 200,000 people and your average protest. it's not just a "march for one day and go home" sort of thing (like the pathetic "Day of Action" seen in Ontario at the end of April- where "action" is some poxy speeches & a tired march before everyone is bussed home)
and yes, the question of material conditions is interesting, because above all else we live in a time where politics as such (or rather, this late capitalist definition of politics) simply do not work. the space within which to formulate economic policy is today incredibly limited, and so as a result you have the political game as such falling into this ridiculous circus in an incredibly self-conscious manner.
but man in the old days if you wanted to join the socialist party or whatever you had to go through a god damn education. you had to read a shitload of books and go to seminars and you couldnt be a member until you were politically literate enough to be an equal to everyone else. the politically organized stevedores and construction workers of that time often had a far greater understanding of politics than basically anyone today, because politics as such wasnt seen as this fucking narcissistic "have it your way" means of expressing yourself.
today you dont need an ideology or a theory or any sort of dedication, because thats not what politics is about. politics is about feeding your moral outrage or as a way of profiling yourself or whatever, but it should never be allowed to be something that you cant drop or that somehow imposes itself on you, that takes control of you and makes you an instrument. politics has to be "fun" and it has to be "interesting", because its there to entertain you. politics, far from being something that involved discipline and sacrifice, is today just another of the myriad of instruments in the hedonist toolbox.
any first world left that wants to actually break out of this is going to have to break this "injunction to enjoy" (zizek circlejerk ahoy) first thing. i was looking at a documentary about the black panthers and its the same god damn thing. political education coupled with constant reminders that "you are a shitty, insignificant individual and unless youre ready to sacrifice your own petty enjoyments + your life then you dont belong here". saying something like that is almost unthinkable today. thats simply not how people think anymore.
Edited by Tinkzorg ()
girdles_gone_wild posted:if you criticize anime you're a bigot and hate the japenese
yes. got a problem w/ taht, chump?
aerdil posted:yes. got a problem w/ taht, chump?
check your tone, son. no hostilities here, unless you like asshole privilege
babyfinland posted:if it makes you feel better i think that even managing to resolve this problem you've posited wouldn't really resolve fundamental problems (that determine political failure of your ultimate goals) originating in the metaphysics
post-capitalist anime production is a foregone conclusion, maybe uve heard of this lil thing called historical materialism?????
Tinkzorg posted:babyfinland posted:if it makes you feel better i think that even managing to resolve this problem you've posited wouldn't really resolve fundamental problems (that determine political failure of your ultimate goals) originating in the metaphysics
post-capitalist anime production is a foregone conclusion, maybe uve heard of this lil thing called historical materialism?????
like youre right that "politics" dont "work", but i dont think thats reducible to some incidental constellation of the material conditions, but the (very logical and expected, if the processes are analyzed) product of western political thought whose attainment has gathered acceleration since the french revolution. the gradual indistinction of constitutive (state/political institutions) and constituting (principle of sovereignty, a state "for the people", for the "race", for the "revolution") power, blurring into a single political power which we see, and can be viewed in both capitalist mass society as well as the socialist and fascist totalitarian projects, is problematic because they already assume, on the aristotelian potentiality vs actuality metaphysic, the indistinction of justice and violence. the point is not to better manage this justice-violence matrix, or even to try to postulate (as i think the left tends to do) some sort of ideal program that prevents the exhaustion of the constituting power into the constitutive power that results in this justice-violence marriage but the postulation of a metaphysics that doesn't rely on potentiality actualizing itself, for itself, so that the principle of sovereignty is not also smuggled into whatever emancipatory efforts, inevitably to assert itself once again regardless of particular constitutive or constituting form