Re: Grand narratives vs Identitarianism
> On 30 Oct 2018, at 13:44, Ian Alan Paul wrote: > > It's possible to critique biological essentialism in relation to race/sex, > while also defending the reality of race/sex in the sense that they are real > distinctions/categorizations that have been historically acted upon by the > material forces of capital. Hm. “Defending”?! Of course we must recognize race (and thus racism; without the anchor point of race, there can’t be racism) in order to understand apartheid (and other forms of oppression based on the social ghost / misinformed social construction of “race”), but that’s rather different from using it to build a preferred future. We should know better. If we want an “a-racial” world (I assume that’s what we want, but I could be wrong; lex SA and the politics of ANC) then cementing the notion of race hardly does the job. It perpetuates it. I find the position of using “race” to build a vision of the future deeply cynical, manipulative, nostalgic and/or naive. Even racist. Or at least, metaphorically, tone deaf. Or do you believe that the difference between “races” is greater than “within” race? Then you are factually incorrect. And that’s not a humble opinion. Again, I understand that race is essential for analysis of past problems, but I reject it’s essential for building a future vision. And whether we subscribe to capitalism (as in risk/reward, freedom/prison/lack of choice and collective/individual intelligence/stupidity; thus over time concentrating power to people/class with wealth/timing/luck) or more regulated economic frameworks (promoting wealth distribution and other types of balancing interventions impacting “quality of life”, equal opportunity, fairness and justice), explain to me how the notion of race informs a way forward? What do you want to do with your “defending” of race going forward? In what way does it inform your vision? And I will not buy a lazy “I don’t know; that’s not my job”. You need to be able to take your position into reality. Lay it bare. I get the intersectional analysis, I get the oppressed and oppressor (as a way of analyzing history and even contemporary society), but what are you proposing? In what way will this analysis help us going forward? Just to get concrete. The best theories are deeply practical. Imho. > What is being pushed back against is the notion that you can ever understand > class absent of an understanding of race and sex. Of course you can. Just look at cash flow and balance sheet. How much profit are you making (or loss) and what is your net asset position? Look at it from sperm to worm (ie over a lifetime). Compare. Contrast. Believe me, I’m a son of parents, both adopted, one racially reassigned (my dad was the result of a “white man” raping a 15 yo sami girl; consequently forced by state to be put into orphanage and later fostered by two “Swedes”); the other “domiciled” (my mum, born into a traveling community, reassigned to a farmer family by state; this was Sweden in the 30s), I could easily fall into both race and sex analysis (been there, done that, got the t-shirt), but reality is, they were REDUCED to categories, not liberated from it. What got them into the situation, is not the same as what got them out of the situation. What got them out were access and opportunities based on socio economic conditions. Now, you might find that there are high correlation between race and social class, but race do not equal class. Neither does sex. And even if that WAS the case (which it factually isn’t; and probabilities is not valid here, unless you’re a Maoist and ready to sacrifice humanity for ideology; you obviously must have skipped the multi variable analysis in statistics class) then we should be back at fighting for class. Because anything else is a slippery slope to equality meaning we must all BE the same (or even worse; the oppressed becomes the oppressor) — which we are not. Unless you do believe that we can only be equal if we are the same. Or that “difference” somehow merits any type of “special treatment” (white OR black, man OR female, etc). I’m not buying what you’re selling. But I’m open to me misinterpreting your ad. The copy could just be too academic for my comprehension. Talk to me like a worker / consumer please. What’s in it for me and my people? All the best, David # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #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:
Re: Interview with Richard Stallman in New Left Review (September-October 2018)
https://newleftreview.org/II/113/richard-stallman-talking-to-the-mailman richard stallman > TALKING TO THE MAILMAN > Interview by Rob Lucas > Free software is software that respects users’ freedom and community. > It’s not about price. It’s libre, not gratis. At this point, I disagree with RMS. The 'freedom to afford software' should be actually included as the Fifth Freedom of the Free Software Campaign worldwide. As things stand, the outrageous pricing of software (notwithstanding the FOSS challenge) has made it unaffordable to maybe 80% of the world's population. Talking from an Indian context, it has been sometimes roughly calculated how much a license fee would cost in terms of the income of an average person, or even a middle-class person. People are excluded by the pricing (apart from the Freedom aspect). Many millions more. It might be that RMS would not want to alienate the potential coder with this sad reality. But then, this is like the Left worldwide also made the mistake of reassuring the worker that his rights would be superior and protected. Today, the reality in many parts of the globe is that a tiny, organized working class has become a labour aristocracy of sorts, while large swaths of unorganized workers (or migrant workers, or those in another part of the globe) are the slaves of the 21st century... FN 91-9822122436 # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #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:
Re: Interview with Richard Stallman in New Left Review (September-October 2018)
Just because some big, bad, greedy corporation is going to take over all such movements, it does not mean that one should give up on one's dreams. Likewise, after a number of anti-colonial struggles, the regimes which replaced them were rife with corruption, misrule and the very antithesis of striving towards a better world. But that does not mean we should have opted for the colonial situation, right? FN Florian Cramer wrote: > It's one thing to sell your labor as alienated labor to a company, > knowing full well that you get exploited. It's another thing to > contribute to free software as a volunteer and (at least partially) > idealist cause and see others make $30 billions with it. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #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:
Re: Interview with Richard Stallman in New Left Review (September-October 2018)
Am 30.10.2018 um 21:00 schrieb Carsten Agger: > People who contribute with voluntary work for any kind of project (not > just free software) do so for a variety of reasons. Because it's fun, > because they personally think it's important, because they like being a > part of building this, etc. I think you all follow preconceptions about "work" in the digital context. What is special about software is that administrating, coding and using software are no entirely distinct tasks. Esp. when there is no incentive to keep fixes private. The concept emerged in an environment where business and licensing models provided friction for professional (well-paid) system administrators in a research context who were hindered to adapt software to their organisation's needs and infrastructural change. These models are now history. Software grows organically by being used by professional users. When you think about it more generally there are many examples where consumer actions actually benefit the business model. We do not like empty dance floors... by being there we become part of the product. Some may even get paid to show up. Ironically no one frames Facebook contributions as "unpaid voluntary work" to keep the community platform content-wise up and running to the benefit of Mr. Zuckerberg's advertisement business model. --- A # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #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:
Re: Interview with Richard Stallman in New Left Review (September-October 2018)
On 10/30/18 3:14 PM, Florian Cramer wrote: Define "most". What you describe is true for the Linux kernel and other pieces of software that make up a typical Linux distribution such as RedHat, but even those are not 100% developed by paid developers. On top of that, crucial components such as OpenSSH (developed by OpenBSD) and popular applications such The Gimp are developed by volunteers. Free Software as a whole is an ecology that is made up by volunteer and paid developer contributions. And I would argue that all these developers are underpaid in the light of the IBM/RedHat transaction which they will not profit from. (Quite on the opposite, with IBM's management taking over and making it part of its 'cloud' division, the question is how many free software developers on the RedHat payroll will stay in their jobs.) People who contribute with voluntary work for any kind of project (not just free software) do so for a variety of reasons. Because it's fun, because they personally think it's important, because they like being a part of building this, etc. Publishing work under a free license, especially under a non-copyleft license such as the BSD license used by OpenBSD, normally means that you know people may try to make money off the program you made, independently of you, and you're okay with that. Part of that deal is that you, on the other hand, also benefit from other people's contributions (and Red Hat have, at any rate, contributed to a huge number of projects as part of their daily operations). It's one thing to sell your labor as alienated labor to a company, knowing full well that you get exploited. It's another thing to contribute to free software as a volunteer and (at least partially) idealist cause and see others make $30 billions with it. If you contribute to a free software project you know people have the right to use it for any purpose - there's no 'non-commercial' clause in any of the free software licenses, for good reasons. The GIMP may be a good example. The GIMP has certainly featured in Red Hat's GNU/Linux distributions since time immemorial. But how big a contribution towards the $30 billion sale has it made? If IBM really is after the "cloud" software, they're more likely to have bought it for KVM - but then, the GIMP may have contributed to Red Hat's initial success. Something like the worth of the man-hours that went into creating the GIMP multiplied by Red Hat's fraction of "consumption"? At $50 an hour (say), how many hours went into creating the program as it is today? That means that Red Hat's "share" of the GIMP might amount to some tens of thousands of dollars; but then, the developers of the GIMP have presumably also benefited from Red Hat's contributions to the ecosystem. But how would we change the financial workings of the free software ecosystem to reflect that properly? It's an interesting idea; but I doubt, on the other hand, that the notion that they've been "cheated" by IBM buying Red Hat will find any resonance among these developers themselves. People who do contribute are normally perfectly aware that such a possibility exists, even if sometimes and for smaller projects it could seem quite remote. But yes, in a constructive vein, what changes would you suggest to solve this? Best Carsten # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #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:
Grand narratives vs Identitarianism
Dear David I could not agree more. The difference between a Marxist and a Rousseuian analysis seems to be an issue of hierarchy and priority. Class is the overarching category in Marxism. You can play around with identities as much as you like (which you and I have done both privately, publicly, spiritually and politically for years), some of which materially exist (gender) whereas others are nothing but social ghosts (race). However you always have to admit that they are secondary or sub-categories to class. or to rephrase that in what ironically appears to be controversial on Nettime in 2018: A wealthy black lesbian is better off than a poor white heterosexual man. As a matter of fact, she is probably also better educated and has a far higher attentional score in the sociogram too. This is what class is all about. Not about correcting what is attentionally wrong, such tactics belong in daycare centers and not in a civilized society of grown-ups. What Rousseuians always disliked about the Marxist model is that it denies them the pleasure of creating competing victimhood cultures between the identities. Because that is what identitarianism is and does, both the "leftist" and the "rightist" varieties. From the French revolution on to the Chinese cultural revoluition and on to today's hegemonic struggles. As for Brian Holme's otherwise brilliant and sincere summary of what he finds hopeful in current struggle, I'm afraid I believe Brian both wants to eat the cake and keep it. He just hopes there will miraculously appear a shared, unifying vision out of nowhere that suddenly makes The Left something distinctly different than The Right. I see no such thing. I rather see an emancipatory struggle that WAS great and empowering while it held on to proper class analysis having lost that class analysis core and therefore now resorted to the most vulgar form of political correctness obsessed with tonailty, etiquette, opposing free speech and genuine democracy and devaluing itself to an infantilized parody of its proud former self. I'm all for classical feminism with its strong and feminine women, classical LGBT struggle before queer theory made a parody of it, and the struggle against apartheid before it resorted to blaming others for its very own ills and shortcomings. But now I believe Marx and class analysis are more needed than ever. And a new grand narrative of man and machine and collective intelligence born out of that analysis. Because we need vision and direction first and then we can we look at taking care of our respective attentional needs such as sub-identities. Which is why I'm all for and will be part of re-building a Marxist movement for the 21st century (Burning Man, Wikipedia, are such excellent examples that work). But I refuse to be a part of the screaming crowd of the Rousseauian identitarians. As a matter of fact, I find it both reactionary and bloodthirsty. South Africa was just the first example of identitarianism gone wrong and going worse still. Is Jeremy Corbyn's UK next? Best intentions Alexander Den tis 30 okt. 2018 kl 14:13 skrev David Erixon : > One way of fighting “race” is to take the ethical position that “race” > shouldn’t exist. Having lived in SA for years, seeing the Marxist analysis > being applied with “race” instead of “class” means that “race” is being > instilled rather than abolished. Instead of race issues becoming non issues > (as in not being a factor) it’s being cemented. What caused the problem is > not necessarily what will resolve it. And along the way, sadly, the real > class issues are not being addressed. > Class and race is not the same thing, nor should it be. Of all the > socially constructed phenomena, race is a phenomena that should definitely > be destructed. Do we really believe that race can become a thing of the > past, if we continuously keep reinforcing it? Then how? Or, are you > suggesting that race exist as a biological reality, and that it is a real > signifier for individuals as well as groups? > Now, just to be clear, I’m not against an intersectional analysis, I just > don’t believe that intersectionality provides any kind of solution. We need > another way forward. > And, by the way, ironically, so doesn’t the South African constitution. > The notion of “race” is however too much of a power base for the political > elite of ANC. That narrative feeds their power, so better keep that > narrative alive. > All the best, > David > > On 30 Oct 2018, at 12:14, Ian Alan Paul wrote: > > "My native South Africa is heading toward a class war or a race war. A > class war is exactly what South Africa needs, a race war would be > disastrous." > > The inability to think race and class together in this case in particular > says everything you need to know about the poverty and bankrupty of > Alexander's position. > > If your class analysis can't account for the way labor/capital has been > sexualized and racialized historically, via colonialism, the gender
Re: Grand narratives vs Identitarianism
Alexander Bard wrote:
"And a last word concerning class versus sub-identity: My native South
Africa is heading toward a class war or a race war. A class war is exactly
what South Africa needs, a race war would be disastrous. Need I say more?
You get the picture."
Indeed.
But you know, as we're such a resilient interpretative community here on
nettime, we should put a finer point on our concepts.
On the one hand, *identity* can designate an us/them divide whose only
logical conclusion is war, suppression or extermination. Increasingly this
is being whipped up as white identity, a fence at the border, hate crime,
the West vs. the Rest, etc.
On the other hand, *identity politics* (a term which was hardly invented by
Marc Lilla, but goes back at least to the 90s and probably the 70s) has
been an extraordinarily progressive and transformative force in the United
States, in Britain, and surely many other countries where colonial history
left a mixed-race population and a legacy of unquestioned white privilege.
How exactly do you stand up to a system whose dynamic class structure
continually remakes the balance of social power, while continually
exploiting the labor of some people who are reviled in every other possible
way (blacks), trying to extirpate the very existence of other people who
were clearly there first and should have all the rights (indigenous
people), and maintaining the sexual submission of fully half the population
(women)?
To judge by recent history, you do it by saying "Me too, I am part of the
oppressed, and we are not going to take it anymore." If at that point some
old white guy says, "No, you're wrong," well, it's just proof of concept.
Which is why your ideas are going nowhere, dear Alexander.
In France, identity politics was never developed, despite the intensely
mixed urban population and the huge postcolonial overhang. It was repressed
with notions of universality, whether liberal or leftist. The result has
been a sclerotic society, unable to draw vitality from its youth and
crucially unable to negotiate the incredible tensions produced by the
continual bombing of the Middle East, not only by the US and Britain, but
also by France's very own Mirage jets. This inability to have democratic
confrontations about the de facto oppression of specific groups has been a
sad story that has done a lot of damage to French society, imho.
Conversely, recent years in the US have seen incredible progressive
upsurges of blacks, native Americans, women, Spanish-speaking people,
queers of many kinds, Muslims, and others. This has been impressive to live
through. I too have had to explore who I am, why I am, and what can be done
about it. While there is no reason to presume that everything advanced
under the banner of identity politics is valuable, the overall effect has
been to reawaken and pursue the Civil Rights Movement, which is substantial
egalitarian and emancipatory politics that heads inevitably toward
socialism.
In the US context it's clear that the new theme and practice of white
identity is a response to the great successes of identity politics.
So do we now reject identity politics and all that it has accomplished?
Impossible.
There is a dialectic at work here. Identity politics has been met by white
identity, raising the specter of sanguinary us/them conflicts. But from
negation something new can arise, which preserves the old intention by
transforming it in every way.
And it's damn interesting, though excruciating, to experience this
dialectical negation concretely, through a full spectrum of debates,
confrontations, political campaigns, attacks, murders, legislative
maneuvers, troop movements, and who-knows-what-else-is-coming.
What I see is that the reactionary side wants to impose an us/them
conflict. The progressive side is at once back to the wall and flush with
success -- a really weird position to be in.
As intellectuals we should all be trying to push the dialectical movement
forward in words and images, so that it can help articulate the rapidly
changing concrete realities. In effect, this would culminate in a new
universal and a new grand narrative. But we would no longer use those
words. Instead we would fill that space with the new forms.
The above does not require creating a straw-man concept ("identity
politics"a la Marc Lilla, a catch-all phrase equated with everything that
has gone wrong since 1980). Nor does it mean bashing past successes and
abounding in the direction of the extremist right, which is doing all it
can to reduce identity politics to a war.
It does mean examining all that has been gained and all that has been
recently lost through the theory and practice of identity politics, in
order to figure out what works and what doesn't, and ultimately (not
immediately) reach new first principles that can be used in any given
situation.
In this way we might get to what Ari and Alexander are rightly looking for,
namely a way to take on the whole system of oppression th
Re: Interview with Richard Stallman in New Left Review (September-October 2018)
Hello Carsten, You wrote: > Most Free/Open Source Software is in fact not created by unpaid > volunteers or even by underpaid workers, but by professional developers > at the companies or organizations who sponsor the projects. Define "most". What you describe is true for the Linux kernel and other pieces of software that make up a typical Linux distribution such as RedHat, but even those are not 100% developed by paid developers. On top of that, crucial components such as OpenSSH (developed by OpenBSD) and popular applications such The Gimp are developed by volunteers. Free Software as a whole is an ecology that is made up by volunteer and paid developer contributions. And I would argue that all these developers are underpaid in the light of the IBM/RedHat transaction which they will not profit from. (Quite on the opposite, with IBM's management taking over and making it part of its 'cloud' division, the question is how many free software developers on the RedHat payroll will stay in their jobs.) It's one thing to sell your labor as alienated labor to a company, knowing full well that you get exploited. It's another thing to contribute to free software as a volunteer and (at least partially) idealist cause and see others make $30 billions with it. I don't buy the argument that RedHat has a $30 billion company value just because of its services. -F > > > > > And Red Hat's value is not as much the free software it has used as its > knowledge and infrastructure - which has arguably not been built by > unpaid volunteers. > > In general, I'd say, top-professional FOSS tools are not built by > amateurs or volunteers - though maybe by people who like to make them > and who also can get paid by consulting or doing other works related to > that. > > But as I said, it's not the licensing regime, but the exploitative > nature of capitalist companies, that's the problem. Going proprietary > wouldn't help a bit. Creating cooperatives that shared the income > without any need for "bosses" or "owners" would be a safer bet. > > Best > > Carsten > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > #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 : no commercial use without permission #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:
Re: Grand narratives vs Identitarianism
David - It's possible to critique biological essentialism in relation to race/sex, while also defending the reality of race/sex in the sense that they are real distinctions/categorizations that have been historically acted upon by the material forces of capital. Whether race should or shouldn't exist is an impossibly abstract ethical question that doesn't really pertain to a debate concerning whether it does exist categorically for capital, and as a consequence also exists materially in class distinctions. I'm really not sure why so many here seem to equate the indisputable claim that race and sex are inseperably entangled with class historically as an argument that all politics can only to revolve around the identities of race and/or sex. No one here has argued that, and that's just as comical and detached as the position being argued by Alexander. What is being pushed back against is the notion that you can ever understand class absent of an understanding of race and sex. The answer to that question is unequivocally no. Even Marx, who is being uncritically and religiously waved around in these threads, wrote extensively about the centrality of imperialism and colonialism in capital's historical development. People who talk of the universality and purity of class absent of any other historical specifity are the ones putting their faith in essentialism, not the other way around. On Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 09:12 David Erixon wrote: > One way of fighting “race” is to take the ethical position that “race” > shouldn’t exist. Having lived in SA for years, seeing the Marxist analysis > being applied with “race” instead of “class” means that “race” is being > instilled rather than abolished. Instead of race issues becoming non issues > (as in not being a factor) it’s being cemented. What caused the problem is > not necessarily what will resolve it. And along the way, sadly, the real > class issues are not being addressed. > Class and race is not the same thing, nor should it be. Of all the > socially constructed phenomena, race is a phenomena that should definitely > be destructed. Do we really believe that race can become a thing of the > past, if we continuously keep reinforcing it? Then how? Or, are you > suggesting that race exist as a biological reality, and that it is a real > signifier for individuals as well as groups? > Now, just to be clear, I’m not against an intersectional analysis, I just > don’t believe that intersectionality provides any kind of solution. We need > another way forward. > And, by the way, ironically, so doesn’t the South African constitution. > The notion of “race” is however too much of a power base for the political > elite of ANC. That narrative feeds their power, so better keep that > narrative alive. > All the best, > David > > On 30 Oct 2018, at 12:14, Ian Alan Paul wrote: > > "My native South Africa is heading toward a class war or a race war. A > class war is exactly what South Africa needs, a race war would be > disastrous." > > The inability to think race and class together in this case in particular > says everything you need to know about the poverty and bankrupty of > Alexander's position. > > If your class analysis can't account for the way labor/capital has been > sexualized and racialized historically, via colonialism, the gendered > division of labor, etc., then your analysis has nothing do with the > actuality of the world and instead only obscures it. > > On Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 07:23 Alexander Bard wrote: > >> Dear Florian, Brian & Co >> >> Thanks for excellent postings on the future of the left. This is >> precisely the discussion I was looking for. However I think identitarianism >> is quite easy to define. It is simply a series of sub-categories that deny >> any superior category that ties them together. Laclau and Mouffe defined it >> quite clearly in the 1980s with their hegemony theory. What they heralded >> though as the route out of the hellhole of the grand narrative(s) and >> admitted would be a competition between subcultural sub-identities (the >> identities that fight over who should be seen and heard in identity >> politics, who is the biggest current victim) I believe was a terrible >> mistake. Let's use some Freud, Kristeva and Girard here to understand why >> I'm so strongly opposed to Laclau and Mouffe. >> >> A tribe or a nation is lead by a grand narrative of where it comes from >> and where it is heading. This is the priestly or shamanic storytelling of >> where and when the tribe has to move/adapt to change. The vague goal is >> some kind of utopian vision (the journey being more important than the goal >> etc), the past is retold as to cherish the wisdom of the elderly and the >> energy of the young so as to keep the whole tribe/nation on the move and >> adaptable to change without patricides or matricides (costly revolutions or >> bloody coups) being necessary. Any other identities are then sub-identities >> to this overarching col
Re: Grand narratives vs Identitarianism
One way of fighting “race” is to take the ethical position that “race” shouldn’t exist. Having lived in SA for years, seeing the Marxist analysis being applied with “race” instead of “class” means that “race” is being instilled rather than abolished. Instead of race issues becoming non issues (as in not being a factor) it’s being cemented. What caused the problem is not necessarily what will resolve it. And along the way, sadly, the real class issues are not being addressed. Class and race is not the same thing, nor should it be. Of all the socially constructed phenomena, race is a phenomena that should definitely be destructed. Do we really believe that race can become a thing of the past, if we continuously keep reinforcing it? Then how? Or, are you suggesting that race exist as a biological reality, and that it is a real signifier for individuals as well as groups? Now, just to be clear, I’m not against an intersectional analysis, I just don’t believe that intersectionality provides any kind of solution. We need another way forward. And, by the way, ironically, so doesn’t the South African constitution. The notion of “race” is however too much of a power base for the political elite of ANC. That narrative feeds their power, so better keep that narrative alive. All the best, David > On 30 Oct 2018, at 12:14, Ian Alan Paul wrote: > > "My native South Africa is heading toward a class war or a race war. A class > war is exactly what South Africa needs, a race war would be disastrous." > > The inability to think race and class together in this case in particular > says everything you need to know about the poverty and bankrupty of > Alexander's position. > > If your class analysis can't account for the way labor/capital has been > sexualized and racialized historically, via colonialism, the gendered > division of labor, etc., then your analysis has nothing do with the actuality > of the world and instead only obscures it. > >> On Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 07:23 Alexander Bard wrote: >> Dear Florian, Brian & Co >> >> Thanks for excellent postings on the future of the left. This is precisely >> the discussion I was looking for. However I think identitarianism is quite >> easy to define. It is simply a series of sub-categories that deny any >> superior category that ties them together. Laclau and Mouffe defined it >> quite clearly in the 1980s with their hegemony theory. What they heralded >> though as the route out of the hellhole of the grand narrative(s) and >> admitted would be a competition between subcultural sub-identities (the >> identities that fight over who should be seen and heard in identity >> politics, who is the biggest current victim) I believe was a terrible >> mistake. Let's use some Freud, Kristeva and Girard here to understand why >> I'm so strongly opposed to Laclau and Mouffe. >> >> A tribe or a nation is lead by a grand narrative of where it comes from and >> where it is heading. This is the priestly or shamanic storytelling of where >> and when the tribe has to move/adapt to change. The vague goal is some kind >> of utopian vision (the journey being more important than the goal etc), the >> past is retold as to cherish the wisdom of the elderly and the energy of the >> young so as to keep the whole tribe/nation on the move and adaptable to >> change without patricides or matricides (costly revolutions or bloody coups) >> being necessary. Any other identities are then sub-identities to this >> overarching collective superidentity (tribe, nation, religion, party, state >> etc). >> >> The loyalty toward the superidentity is achieved either through what >> Kristeva calls the authentic phallus (the fetish that lifts the collective >> upward) or through the false phallus (the abject that unifies the >> superidentity through hatred) to complement the mamilla that secures >> everyday survival. Often cited examples are Moses and the Promised Land for >> a fetish and Hitler and the Jew for an abject. With three main disastrous >> fake-phallic projects to deal with in the west (Hitler, Stalin and >> Colonialism) it is no wonder that The West had to go through an iron bath of >> critical analysis to deal with all three simultaneously from the 1940s >> forward. >> >> But in doing so, the baby (grand narratives) was thrown out with the >> bathwater which made us all terribly sensitive toward a return to the very >> roots of these three fake phalluses and then naively started building a >> forth one. I'm not kidding, but Identitarianism is as Rousseuian as the >> previous three (Steven Pinker describes the dilemma beautifully in "The >> Blank Slate"). Postmodernism became its own grand narrative as an >> anti-narrative and that is why Identitarianism is what it is and why it is >> so dangerous. It does not even see its own blind spot (you need Hegel to do >> that, we must stop bad-mouthing Hegel). >> >> The Identity Left denied the possi
Re: Interview with Richard Stallman in New Left Review (September-October 2018)
On 10/29/18 3:00 PM, Emery Hemingway wrote: A fight for economic rights for software workers is a fight for paid/dual licensing model of open source, and a fight against the entire open source establishment. First against the naive/senile GNU theorists, next the Open Source Initiative, then IBM and Microsoft (they love open source), and then the Chinese multinationals, who have profited most from an environment of "free as in free". As someone who worked as a software worker since 1996, I disagree completely. Using proprietary licensing would not improve our economic wellbeing at all. Companies will always charge their customers as much as possible and pay their employees as little as possible. Using proprietary licenses allow companies to cheat their customers by charging many times over for the same work, but that doesn't necessarily benefit their employees. On the other hand, the vast infrastrucutre of free (as in Freedom) tools for whatever purpose makes the life of a programmer much easier and makes us much efficient, which also augments the value of the work we do. Also, it's interesting and important for the potential democratization of modern technology that we can all download, use and even change absolutely top-notch, state of the art software in a lot of areas. On Sunday, October 28, 2018 10:02:53 PM CET, Florian Cramer wrote: Today, IBM announced that it will buy up Red Hat for $30 billion. That value was mostly created by the labor of volunteer, un- or underpaid developers of the Free/Libre/Open Source software that makes up Red Hat's products. These people will not see a dime of IBM’s money. There need to be discussions of economic flaws and exploitation in the FLOSS development/distribution model. Most Free/Open Source Software is in fact not created by unpaid volunteers or even by underpaid workers, but by professional developers at the companies or organizations who sponsor the projects. And Red Hat's value is not as much the free software it has used as its knowledge and infrastructure - which has arguably not been built by unpaid volunteers. In general, I'd say, top-professional FOSS tools are not built by amateurs or volunteers - though maybe by people who like to make them and who also can get paid by consulting or doing other works related to that. But as I said, it's not the licensing regime, but the exploitative nature of capitalist companies, that's the problem. Going proprietary wouldn't help a bit. Creating cooperatives that shared the income without any need for "bosses" or "owners" would be a safer bet. Best Carsten # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #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:
Re: Grand narratives vs Identitarianism
Actually, nope. Rather the exact opposite: "The inability to think race and class separately says everything you need to know about the poverty and bankruptcy of Ian's position." Unless you realize that a wealthy person, regardless of skin or hair color for that matter, has more power and influence in any given society than a poor person, you are in really dangerous and deceitful territory. And as for "the richness of the complexity of your understanding", Ian, bare me your enormous pretentiousness. People are simple. As is wealth and income. Only a tired old capitalist would claim that anything is so complex and sophisticated that it can not be understood. Pretentiousness is merely hiding the reactionary attitude driving identitarianism. It helps nobody. Least of all the poor South Africans first betrayed by apartheid and now by the utterly corrupt and sickeningly identitarian and privilege-driven ANC. South Africa proves exactly what I'm saying. I repeat: A race war would be disastrous, but a class war against the entire establishment is exactly what the country needs. Never ever mix up the two. Over and out Alexander Den tis 30 okt. 2018 kl 13:15 skrev Ian Alan Paul : > "My native South Africa is heading toward a class war or a race war. A > class war is exactly what South Africa needs, a race war would be > disastrous." > > The inability to think race and class together in this case in particular > says everything you need to know about the poverty and bankrupty of > Alexander's position. > > If your class analysis can't account for the way labor/capital has been > sexualized and racialized historically, via colonialism, the gendered > division of labor, etc., then your analysis has nothing do with the > actuality of the world and instead only obscures it. > > On Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 07:23 Alexander Bard wrote: > >> Dear Florian, Brian & Co >> >> Thanks for excellent postings on the future of the left. This is >> precisely the discussion I was looking for. However I think identitarianism >> is quite easy to define. It is simply a series of sub-categories that deny >> any superior category that ties them together. Laclau and Mouffe defined it >> quite clearly in the 1980s with their hegemony theory. What they heralded >> though as the route out of the hellhole of the grand narrative(s) and >> admitted would be a competition between subcultural sub-identities (the >> identities that fight over who should be seen and heard in identity >> politics, who is the biggest current victim) I believe was a terrible >> mistake. Let's use some Freud, Kristeva and Girard here to understand why >> I'm so strongly opposed to Laclau and Mouffe. >> >> A tribe or a nation is lead by a grand narrative of where it comes from >> and where it is heading. This is the priestly or shamanic storytelling of >> where and when the tribe has to move/adapt to change. The vague goal is >> some kind of utopian vision (the journey being more important than the goal >> etc), the past is retold as to cherish the wisdom of the elderly and the >> energy of the young so as to keep the whole tribe/nation on the move and >> adaptable to change without patricides or matricides (costly revolutions or >> bloody coups) being necessary. Any other identities are then sub-identities >> to this overarching collective superidentity (tribe, nation, religion, >> party, state etc). >> >> The loyalty toward the superidentity is achieved either through what >> Kristeva calls the authentic phallus (the fetish that lifts the collective >> upward) or through the false phallus (the abject that unifies the >> superidentity through hatred) to complement the mamilla that secures >> everyday survival. Often cited examples are Moses and the Promised Land for >> a fetish and Hitler and the Jew for an abject. With three main disastrous >> fake-phallic projects to deal with in the west (Hitler, Stalin and >> Colonialism) it is no wonder that The West had to go through an iron bath >> of critical analysis to deal with all three simultaneously from the 1940s >> forward. >> >> But in doing so, the baby (grand narratives) was thrown out with the >> bathwater which made us all terribly sensitive toward a return to the very >> roots of these three fake phalluses and then naively started building a >> forth one. I'm not kidding, but Identitarianism is as Rousseuian as the >> previous three (Steven Pinker describes the dilemma beautifully in "The >> Blank Slate"). Postmodernism became its own grand narrative as an >> anti-narrative and that is why Identitarianism is what it is and why it is >> so dangerous. It does not even see its own blind spot (you need Hegel to do >> that, we must stop bad-mouthing Hegel). >> >> The Identity Left denied the possibility of vision and its own capacity >> for adulthood (the journey to The Promised Land is of course the journey >> from childhood to adulthood), eternally infantilized itself, and did so by >> sloppily adding an abject to unify a
Re: Grand narratives vs Identitarianism
"My native South Africa is heading toward a class war or a race war. A class war is exactly what South Africa needs, a race war would be disastrous." The inability to think race and class together in this case in particular says everything you need to know about the poverty and bankrupty of Alexander's position. If your class analysis can't account for the way labor/capital has been sexualized and racialized historically, via colonialism, the gendered division of labor, etc., then your analysis has nothing do with the actuality of the world and instead only obscures it. On Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 07:23 Alexander Bard wrote: > Dear Florian, Brian & Co > > Thanks for excellent postings on the future of the left. This is precisely > the discussion I was looking for. However I think identitarianism is quite > easy to define. It is simply a series of sub-categories that deny any > superior category that ties them together. Laclau and Mouffe defined it > quite clearly in the 1980s with their hegemony theory. What they heralded > though as the route out of the hellhole of the grand narrative(s) and > admitted would be a competition between subcultural sub-identities (the > identities that fight over who should be seen and heard in identity > politics, who is the biggest current victim) I believe was a terrible > mistake. Let's use some Freud, Kristeva and Girard here to understand why > I'm so strongly opposed to Laclau and Mouffe. > > A tribe or a nation is lead by a grand narrative of where it comes from > and where it is heading. This is the priestly or shamanic storytelling of > where and when the tribe has to move/adapt to change. The vague goal is > some kind of utopian vision (the journey being more important than the goal > etc), the past is retold as to cherish the wisdom of the elderly and the > energy of the young so as to keep the whole tribe/nation on the move and > adaptable to change without patricides or matricides (costly revolutions or > bloody coups) being necessary. Any other identities are then sub-identities > to this overarching collective superidentity (tribe, nation, religion, > party, state etc). > > The loyalty toward the superidentity is achieved either through what > Kristeva calls the authentic phallus (the fetish that lifts the collective > upward) or through the false phallus (the abject that unifies the > superidentity through hatred) to complement the mamilla that secures > everyday survival. Often cited examples are Moses and the Promised Land for > a fetish and Hitler and the Jew for an abject. With three main disastrous > fake-phallic projects to deal with in the west (Hitler, Stalin and > Colonialism) it is no wonder that The West had to go through an iron bath > of critical analysis to deal with all three simultaneously from the 1940s > forward. > > But in doing so, the baby (grand narratives) was thrown out with the > bathwater which made us all terribly sensitive toward a return to the very > roots of these three fake phalluses and then naively started building a > forth one. I'm not kidding, but Identitarianism is as Rousseuian as the > previous three (Steven Pinker describes the dilemma beautifully in "The > Blank Slate"). Postmodernism became its own grand narrative as an > anti-narrative and that is why Identitarianism is what it is and why it is > so dangerous. It does not even see its own blind spot (you need Hegel to do > that, we must stop bad-mouthing Hegel). > > The Identity Left denied the possibility of vision and its own capacity > for adulthood (the journey to The Promised Land is of course the journey > from childhood to adulthood), eternally infantilized itself, and did so by > sloppily adding an abject to unify all its various self-victimization > cults, namely around The White Heterosexual Male. It was consequently only > a matter of time before The White Heterosexual Male stood up and made > himself the victim and there you have the equally Rousseauian Extreme > Right, Trumpism etc. At least the Extreme Right in Europe, Florian, is > distinctly male and working class, in Sweden all Sweden Democrats are > former Social Democrats for example. And what are the middle classes if not > second generation working class anyway? > > Now we are stuck with the Charlottesvilles of the world and the only way > out is a new utopian vision. The Right has its own clumsy version of this > vision and it is its tech heroes Elon Musk and his vain trip to Mars, > biohacking, transhumanism and the lot. Libertarian tax-free utopias devoid > of nation-state attachments. And they can't even make Facebook a > customer-friendly experience. Enough said. Silicon Valley ideology is not > even individualistic, it is outright autistic. We can surely do better than > that. Now if the Left could recognize that we, again, have to try to build > a grand narrative proper to unite The Left through empowerment and not > entitlement, remove ourselves from the grand tits of welfare-states and >
Grand narratives vs Identitarianism
Dear Florian, Brian & Co Thanks for excellent postings on the future of the left. This is precisely the discussion I was looking for. However I think identitarianism is quite easy to define. It is simply a series of sub-categories that deny any superior category that ties them together. Laclau and Mouffe defined it quite clearly in the 1980s with their hegemony theory. What they heralded though as the route out of the hellhole of the grand narrative(s) and admitted would be a competition between subcultural sub-identities (the identities that fight over who should be seen and heard in identity politics, who is the biggest current victim) I believe was a terrible mistake. Let's use some Freud, Kristeva and Girard here to understand why I'm so strongly opposed to Laclau and Mouffe. A tribe or a nation is lead by a grand narrative of where it comes from and where it is heading. This is the priestly or shamanic storytelling of where and when the tribe has to move/adapt to change. The vague goal is some kind of utopian vision (the journey being more important than the goal etc), the past is retold as to cherish the wisdom of the elderly and the energy of the young so as to keep the whole tribe/nation on the move and adaptable to change without patricides or matricides (costly revolutions or bloody coups) being necessary. Any other identities are then sub-identities to this overarching collective superidentity (tribe, nation, religion, party, state etc). The loyalty toward the superidentity is achieved either through what Kristeva calls the authentic phallus (the fetish that lifts the collective upward) or through the false phallus (the abject that unifies the superidentity through hatred) to complement the mamilla that secures everyday survival. Often cited examples are Moses and the Promised Land for a fetish and Hitler and the Jew for an abject. With three main disastrous fake-phallic projects to deal with in the west (Hitler, Stalin and Colonialism) it is no wonder that The West had to go through an iron bath of critical analysis to deal with all three simultaneously from the 1940s forward. But in doing so, the baby (grand narratives) was thrown out with the bathwater which made us all terribly sensitive toward a return to the very roots of these three fake phalluses and then naively started building a forth one. I'm not kidding, but Identitarianism is as Rousseuian as the previous three (Steven Pinker describes the dilemma beautifully in "The Blank Slate"). Postmodernism became its own grand narrative as an anti-narrative and that is why Identitarianism is what it is and why it is so dangerous. It does not even see its own blind spot (you need Hegel to do that, we must stop bad-mouthing Hegel). The Identity Left denied the possibility of vision and its own capacity for adulthood (the journey to The Promised Land is of course the journey from childhood to adulthood), eternally infantilized itself, and did so by sloppily adding an abject to unify all its various self-victimization cults, namely around The White Heterosexual Male. It was consequently only a matter of time before The White Heterosexual Male stood up and made himself the victim and there you have the equally Rousseauian Extreme Right, Trumpism etc. At least the Extreme Right in Europe, Florian, is distinctly male and working class, in Sweden all Sweden Democrats are former Social Democrats for example. And what are the middle classes if not second generation working class anyway? Now we are stuck with the Charlottesvilles of the world and the only way out is a new utopian vision. The Right has its own clumsy version of this vision and it is its tech heroes Elon Musk and his vain trip to Mars, biohacking, transhumanism and the lot. Libertarian tax-free utopias devoid of nation-state attachments. And they can't even make Facebook a customer-friendly experience. Enough said. Silicon Valley ideology is not even individualistic, it is outright autistic. We can surely do better than that. Now if the Left could recognize that we, again, have to try to build a grand narrative proper to unite The Left through empowerment and not entitlement, remove ourselves from the grand tits of welfare-states and consumer societies, then we must be able to beat the shit out of the right's utterly mediocre visions of banal self-improvements, sexbots, space travel and whatever nonsense next they come up with. What can man and machine really do together? What can biological and machine intelligence achieve together? Why is the tribe way stronger than the dividual? This is The Left I want to be part of. Identitarianism has no place in it, because identities are fine as sub-categories of tribe and class. But they are not the top of the hierarchy. Because is they remain so, we are heading straight for the disaster. Identitarianism must go. Or at least it is not part of "The Left" that I want to be part of. There Vision, Narrative and Empowerment are everything. And M
