Re: science wars replace culture wars as new divider in contemp politics
On Thu, Feb 03, 2022 at 09:22:45AM +0100, Alex Foti wrote: > let's win the science wars to prevail in the climate and class struggles, Yes, please. Thank you for emphasising the issue of science in all of this. TL;DR: How big is the impact of culturally accepted anti-science and will this new awareness also help focus on that? A crazy optimistic thought of mine: what if a new attention towards fact-orientedness and science in the reasonable majorities of society suddenly helps unveil other areas of political thought, where anti-science has been commonly accepted for decades? What if these developments bring about a new honest look at otherwise ideology-driven political movements like the "economic sciences", "conservative" political parties who praise free markets while ignoring that the markets haven't been free for quite a while now? Each time I hear "conservative" or "liberal" leaders like FDP's Lindner spew out populist el-cheapo phrases like "no raise in taxes" when taxes, applied to the right people, are absolutely essential in achieving sustainable existence of the human species, it makes me worry about the intelli- gence of voters. And then they interview some student who says he voted for FDP because saving the planet is impor- tant but to him it matters more that no speed limit is introduced on highways. The science vs ideology vs radicalisation wars, are they about Internet desinformation? Or are they about stupidity? Or about lack of empathy and care? Who cares about future generations if even many of today's kids don't? Anyway, I wish us luck. What were the culture wars actually? Fighting over ideologies while more or less accepting facts to be facts and science to be science? Well, then maybe it is good that the disrespect of science in large chunks of the political spectrum becomes more visible - not just those parts of anti-science that are not acceptable culturally. P.S. Another example of culturally widely accepted anti- science: The microwave oven scare. # 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: science wars replace culture wars as new divider in contemp politics
thanks for your critical remarks. true the fascist cancer hasn't spared neither spain nor portugal, but it seems to me that they are not attracting large numbers of people from other sectors of society as it happens in the rest of continental europe (and canada!) with no vax movements. best ciaos, alex On Thu, Feb 3, 2022 at 3:24 PM José María Mateos wrote: > On Thu, Feb 03, 2022 at 10:22:37AM +, Andre Rangel wrote: > >Hi Alex, > > > >Thank you for your text. Just a minor correction. > > > >Unfortunately. In Portugal, the extreme right “Chega” was the third most > voted in the last election (7.15% of the votes). In Spain Vox is the > political umbrela for Francoism/Nazi/Nationalist movements. Vox is > connected with Chega. Unfortunately. > > I was going to reply to this too. Yes, in Spain Vox is also quite > representative of the anti-vax movement. Santiago Abascal, its leader, > has refused to say whether he's vaccinated or not: > https://cadenaser-com.translate.goog/ser/2021/09/18/sociedad/1631954620_782993.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp > > This is party that is managing to attract everything that's fringe on > the right and extreme right. One of its representatives in parliament > tweeted "Trust the plan" on Jan 7th 2021: > https://twitter.com/Macarena_Olona/status/134734146821192?s=20 > > Cheers, > > -- > José María (Chema) Mateos || https://rinzewind.org > # 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: science wars replace culture wars as new divider in contemp politics
On Thu, Feb 03, 2022 at 10:22:37AM +, Andre Rangel wrote: Hi Alex, Thank you for your text. Just a minor correction. Unfortunately. In Portugal, the extreme right “Chega” was the third most voted in the last election (7.15% of the votes). In Spain Vox is the political umbrela for Francoism/Nazi/Nationalist movements. Vox is connected with Chega. Unfortunately. I was going to reply to this too. Yes, in Spain Vox is also quite representative of the anti-vax movement. Santiago Abascal, its leader, has refused to say whether he's vaccinated or not: https://cadenaser-com.translate.goog/ser/2021/09/18/sociedad/1631954620_782993.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp This is party that is managing to attract everything that's fringe on the right and extreme right. One of its representatives in parliament tweeted "Trust the plan" on Jan 7th 2021: https://twitter.com/Macarena_Olona/status/134734146821192?s=20 Cheers, -- José María (Chema) Mateos || https://rinzewind.org # 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: science wars replace culture wars as new divider in contemp politics
Hi Alex, Thank you for your text. Just a minor correction. Unfortunately. In Portugal, the extreme right “Chega” was the third most voted in the last election (7.15% of the votes). In Spain Vox is the political umbrela for Francoism/Nazi/Nationalist movements. Vox is connected with Chega. Unfortunately. Best, André > On 3 Feb 2022, at 08:22, Alex Foti wrote: > > by the nationalist and racist right is a constant all across Continental > Europe (iberia excepted) # 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:
science wars replace culture wars as new divider in contemp politics
hi guys, i owe to my good friend cedric jonckheere this fundamental intuition that well summarizes the postpandemic shift in modern politics. there's no longer (woke) left and (populist) right. the emergence of major novax movements largely hegemonized by the nationalist and racist right is a constant all across Continental Europe (iberia excepted) and the English-speaking world (and largely absent elsewhere - the vax angst seems for whites). there's people who trust the empirical method and the role of science in knowledge and health and people who do not because they are novax or nopass, mistrust the state, oligotech, big pharma, whatever. if the epistemological divide is clear-cut, the sociological rift of the science wars is anything but. i was recently in belgium and this coincided with the european libertarian demo. in francophone countries the agambenian fallacy looms large and splits the pre-existing radical left in two. compounding the confusion but revealing the strength of the lefty nopass component, justine and son boyfriend have just published le manifeste conspirationniste (seuil), the black book of leftist conspiracies. a corollary of this was that in brussels the clashes with the police were done by outrerhin black blocs, thereby at least hiding the fascist component from the news (which was large: flemish, italian, german, romanian). it's hard but necessary taking stock of the social variables that are predictors of wo/man falling into the novax trap. i surmise my inferences: yoga, veganism, buddhism and oriental religions are strong predictors, as are also critiques of sciences steeped in postmodernism and poststructuralism. foucauldianism has become a liability, alas. major components of no vax movements are: national populists (white supremacists, racists, fascists, nazi-populists), provincial lumpenpreneurs, hippies and communitarians, anarchists (but crimethinc is opposed to that and the hong kong movement pioneered public health response). punks, antifas, postcolonialists are usually invariably provaccinations altho they remain antigov. feminists, it depends - some strands of ecofeminism can be science-skeptic, but most feminism has embraced the postcapitalist society of care which is in favor of restrictions to protect society (but please keep the schools open). in italy the leftist component of the novax movement is smaller, also because fascists (forza nuova) have attacked the chamber of labor in our version of january 6, the red mainstream union cgil's hq in rome, in the coda of a nopass demo, tarnishing the image of the movement in anybody with a progressive mind. Unlike in france and belgium, autonomists here are all provax also because they did the covid brigades and have seen with their eyes the death and destitution brought by covid. If anything they have erred on the side of caution, keeping squats closed for too long (the minister of health in italy is nominally a red). Still, anarchists and antagonists have participated in the nogreenpass movement in milano (where fascists have been sidelined). although greta's climate justice movement remains the only major movement force on the global scene, along with ni una menos post-metoo feminism, the science wars seem to have stopped the greens' inexhorable rise. also, the return of the state noted by gerbaudo in the great recoil is favoring a return to social-democracy and socialist govs after they seemed to have been irreversibly discredited after their 30-year dalliance with neoliberalism. the german election and the portuguese election could be signs in this direction. government spending is back and voters seem to trust those who have historically championed the welfare state. maybe now that omicron appears to be the last gasp of the pandemic in europe, both the novax movement and the socdem uptick will recede, but that could prove overoptimistic, because the science wars seem to have polarized politics in a new way. what's most depressing in the vax/novax rift is that it overshadows that capital-labor divide, at a time when finally pandemic-induced labor scarcity is changing the balance of power in class struggle and public morality is finally seeing precarious labor for what it is, essential but insecure and underpaid. starbucks is being unionized and amazon could be soon, too. labor is finally reclaiming its share of the pie. that seems more important than getting an mRNA injection. however right now the situation favors technocratic centrists like macron or draghi because they have proved apt at vaccinating large numbers (but omicron has undermined their plan to open businesses and return to offices to restore capitalist normalcy). let's win the science wars to prevail in the climate and class struggles, alex # 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
