Brian wrote: "How to let the nationalist-populist dead bury their dead, while we move on to the urgent question of living under twenty-first century conditions?"
And of course I think / we think about: "Let the dead bury the dead and mourn them. In contrast, it is enviable to be the first to enter upon a new life: this shall be our lot." - Marx to Ruge, 1843 So let's pray that we're in 1843 or so. Meanwhile: https://alienocene.com/ and especially:https://alienocene.com/2018/10/23/a-communism-of-ghosts/ F. On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 2:46 PM Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 8:56 AM Ian Alan Paul <ianalanp...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > To romanticize the analysis of a past/outdated Marx as being universal without >> being attentive to the distinct material/historical forces that define >> the present is perhaps the most anti-Marxist position you could take. >> > > The Communist Manifesto is an extraordinary text, on that everyone agrees, > yet for some strange reason almost no one is aware that it was written on > the basis of two years worth of debates within the Communist League, which > was a clandestine working-class organization founded in London by > continental exiles. So apparently it took all that time and all that > engagement for individuals of genius to produce such a resonant > collectivist text. Now, those in the Communist League were mainly artisans > if I have understood right - a very specific kind of identity, later > understood as the "aristocracy of labor" when assembly-line mass production > came in and the whole notion of working class had to be reshaped on the > basis of new experiences. A continuously changing reality means that the > search to find and help co-create a transformative agency is always > ongoing, a perpetual work-in-progress. > > Today in my view, any approach to a universal agency of struggle would > have to take into account, not only labor and the relationship to the > owners, but far more broadly, the relation of human beings to technology as > a force both productive and destructive. This is very far from Marx, who > believed that machines had an inherent progressive force and merely needed > to be wrested from their owners and repurposed to create an even more > productive egalitarian society. Nothing has shown Marx's belief to be true, > alas. Instead, the destructive side of technology now threatens the very > foundation of social and natural reproduction: the biogeochemical cycles of > the Earth. Which brings me to Frederic's statement: > > "A universal subject could have been the green one, the wretched of the > Earth (aka Gaia); but it did not happen, or its advent is, like, buried in > a national-populist grave." > > We await the advent of a collective subject who finds agency in a > transformation of the technological dialogue that humanity maintains with > the Earth. Today we stand only at the beginning of that period in which the > human species, along with most others, faces what Clive Hamilton calls a > "defiant Earth" -- that is, an Earth that self-defensively responds to the > current onslaught of technology, especially but not only CO2. The forms of > oppression that capitalist technology creates are now mediated by the > oceans, the atmosphere, the ice-caps, the jet stream, with very real and > specific returns in the guise of what used to be called "the weather." What > kind of genius - or what new figure of collective intellectual capacity - > would it take to go among the suffering identities of the oppressed, feel > the damage of climate change and the entire global capitalist social > structure that it expresses, and listen for the words, the images, the > experiences, the reference-points and the dreams, the aspirations, the > hopes that could bring people together to transform the ways that > technology is currently deployed? How to let the nationalist-populist dead > bury their dead, while we move on to the urgent question of living under > twenty-first century conditions? > > It's not a rhetorical question. Or rather, it's the most rhetorical > question of them all. The defiant Earth has only begun to smash > technological cities. The upsurge of regressive national-populism proves > that there is no "natural" response; instead, every response is political. > Just tossing around old Marxist catchwords is useless, because it does > nothing like what Marx and Engels actually did. Namely, work directly with > oppressed people in the first phases of political organization, and create > new concepts, new images, new rhetoric that enables collective agency > rather than imprisoning it in the dead-ends of the past. > > Storms, droughts, heat waves, crop failures and rising seas are bringing > formidable challenges that cannot be resolved, for the majority of people > anyway, by inherently exclusive capitalist self-protection techniques. > National-populism, based on the nineteenth-century nationalism of war as a > self-protection and self-aggrandizement strategy, is going to fail > miserably over the next few years. Nor will identity politics survive in > the liberal form that we know today. If you want your work and your life to > be significant, find a way - some way - to address the new conditions and > those who live under them. And above all, find the eyes and the ears and > the subtle senses to grasp the potentials that currently lie buried, but > not dead, beneath the onslaught of a failed return to past mistakes. > > Brian > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
