>What we're currently witnessing is a rift between a neo-traditionalist
socialist political left
>and an intersectional political left. The former wants to re-focus all
political struggle on
>(traditional) class struggle and the restoration of the welfare state,
arguing that the latter
>can only work as a national state with a restrictive border and
immigration regime.
What's alarming is that a rising alignment of certain left-right values
outside of intersectionality is potentially permanent and real, not just a
trick of the light caused by social-media noise and distortion weaponized
by big players.
The right uses "globalism" as a code for Jewish / Foreign, but this blends
invisibly with "globalization" from the left which means to refer to big
transnational capital. There is plenty of room for isolated cells of
self-educated internet organizers to find connections and synchronicities
across the left-right divide, and wherever race or gender is an issue, they
can claim this is some vaguely "elite" entity "trying to divide us." Thus
dismissing identity politics is not a sticking point of racism vs justice
but distraction vs unity. If no brown people show up at their meetings,
they would barely notice.
That is, the reinforcement of anti-globalization on the left is potentially
compatible with current re-alignment of right-wing white nationalism under
pseudo-socialist populism. The success of the right wing variety,
cancelling giant trade agreements like the TPP, may draw wavering adherents
to this side. It's like the right-wing meme that the Nazis were leftists,
coming true in a twisted form.
And even worse, on a global scale the alt-right Brazilians or Indians can
be trotted out as proof that racism and xenophobia isn't the source of this
energy.
>This camp dismisses intersectional positions as "liberal".
I've started to realize that globally we are starting to see a
Parti-Quebecois-style of perhaps unwitting alliance across a great chasm,
based on a few shared objectives. In Quebec the racist / xenophobic rural
right (or even the gentle, conservative whites) has always had a blind
alliance with the socialist / anarchist radical urban left, with the
unifying factor being Quebec sovereignty. That is, the rural right wanted
to protect their cultural privilege and way of life from erosion by "Le
Boss," (an archetypical American or Anglo-Canadian business owner who moves
to Quebec to extract labour without even bothering to learn French) while
the urban left resists American capitalist imperialism (including cultural
imperialism) in the form of that same "Le Boss."
Recently the campaign against Islamic head coverings ("Reasonable
Accommodation") has shaken these alliances up, with many liberals siding
against religious freedom in favour of Quebec white-nationalist identity
(practically) and feminism (idealistically), while more radical
intersectional leftists have broken from the alliance to defend muslim
women from yet another form of clothing oppression. The Parti Quebecois is
in steep decline.
The alignment of Greek leftism with alt-right godfather Putin is maybe the
most alarming example of all this, although Trump's presidency is a big one
too.
On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 1:48 AM Florian Cramer <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Although not directly related to technology per se I found it related to
> our current discussions on the polis and inclusion, as well as a
> > continuing commentary on how the online right operates deftly in
> ostensibly leftist spaces.
>
> This is completely related to our previous discussion of 'identity
> politics'.
>
> What we're currently witnessing is a rift between a neo-traditionalist
> socialist political left and an intersectional political left. The former
> wants to re-focus all political struggle on (traditional) class struggle
> and the restoration of the welfare state, arguing that the latter can only
> work as a national state with a restrictive border and immigration regime.
> This camp dismisses intersectional positions as "liberal". The German
> "Aufstehen" movement of Sarah Wagenknecht and theater maker Bernd Stegemann
> belongs into this category, the Dutch political thinker Ewald Engelen and
> the Dutch Socialist Party. (I'm sure there are more examples, these are
> only the ones I'm most familiar with.)
>
> Movements like Bernie Sanders' and Jeremy Corbyn's seemingly attempt to
> reconcile both positions, but clearly focus their agenda on traditionalist
> class struggle (with Corbyn taking an unclear position towards Brexit). I
> see Angela in the traditionalist-socialist camp, too. That doesn't make her
> part of the "online right".
>
> -F
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