Things the Right get right

[baboon2004]

1/ Well aware of that, but it was US policy to run the USSR into the ground economically by ramping up the space race under Reagan (and the economic spoils of that were v clear from 1992 onwards, even setting aside the huge political victory). It was hubris on the part of Soviet leaders that enabled that, and nothing to do with any presumed socialist ideology. As under any system, too much power in too few hands goes very wrong.

2/ Well, the Scandinavian countries were never systematically looted and plundered, as far as I know. No-one invaded Norway to take its oil or forced it into a pitifully one-sided neocolonial relationship. As to the general question of why European countries contiguous to colonial nations are (almost?) without exception richer than African countries, what do you think?

3/ Well exactly, it's supposed to supersede capitalism across the world once the fatal flaws of capitalism are exposed, not compete with it while most of the world still thinks that planet-destroying and 95%-impoverishing capitalism is y'know, fine. Of course any other ideology is going to struggle to coexist with an ideology/approach whose modus operandi is to accumulate by any means necessary - usually foul means, of course.

4/ That's a kind of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary line -"Well yes, there are other factors of course, but really, these countries are poor because they're badly run". That's ahistorical, and totally ignoring what is still happening. You do realise how many coups and assassinations were carried out against leaders in the developing world who were running their countries pretty well, and therefore not to the liking of the West (or indeed the USSR or China), because they did not open up resources as a free-for-all, or were too socialist?
What state do you think Britain would be in had it been the subject of colonialism rather than its perpetrator? It's in a pretty appalling mess right now given its advantages, and yet it is still one of the wealthiest countries on the globe.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is a very decent read by a historian from Guyana, Walter Rodney. From a UK journalist (apparently for the Financial Times, not known for its leftist politics), The Looting Machine clearly sets out how neocolonialism operates, and thus how poor resource-rich countries are kept poor (and chaotic).

And vice-versa, don't forget. The two superpowers were engaged in an entirely reciprocal arrangement of proxy wars, propaganda, espionage and all kinds of black ops, to say nothing of the space race (in which the USSR had a big head start on the USA) and the nuclear arms race (the USSR's warhead stockpile overtook the USA's in the 1970s and Russia maintains about the same number of nukes as the USA does today, despite having an economy less than a tenth as big).

Not convinced by this at all. Why did so many people try to get from one half of Germany to the other half, when they obviously shared an imperial history? Ditto Austria and Hungary, neither of which ever had an overseas colonial empire. Come to that, how come the Scandinavian countries are so wealthy and developed?

Well communism is supposed to supersede capitalism, isn't it? It doesn't say much for communism if communist countries are dependent for their prosperity on trade with capitalist countries.

Conversely, you're surely not seriously suggesting that this doesn't have a pretty big impact?!

 

[baboon2004]

Definitely, really interesting to look at Reich in this context - would love to hear more about that. Such a pity that that study was derailed. I'm studying Gestalt at the moment (with the obvious Reich link there through Perls), so thinking about these kind of things a lot. Can't speak with any authority about this at all, but I imagine Gestalt's formulation of muscular armouring would be as bodily instantiations of creative adjustments/defences that serve to inhibit (expression of) the emotions.

Have you read any of the other texts linked to/referenced in The Body Knows The Score? It's such an extraordinary book, not least because it's a kind of library of interventions. I keep meaning to follow up on all the avenues it suggests - only thing I've explored so far is Family Systems Therapy.

Interesting thread - also a drive by sorry. To mount my familar hobby horse, what you're talking about (Baboon and Jon) sounds very much like Reich's work. He got fed up of fixing individual trauma and began to look at birthing, child-rearing and education practices as ways of basically producing less fucked up people. He began a study in New York (in '51 IIRC) that was going to work with a group of new mothers seeing if he could prevent the formation of what he called armouring (musular tensions caused by frustration of primary needs that later go on to structure character). It got derailed by his FDA case though and subsquent legal troubles. What happened to Reich is pretty instructive in terms of changing the world. I definitely am very excited about new developments in our understanding of trauma but (as Baboon says if I remeber right) it tends to see trauma as unique cases caused by x horrific incident, rather than a low level spectrum we're all on somewhere. No one has really taken on the implications of Reich's work in that broad spectrum way though afaik - to critique and advocate for new models of obsterics, child rearing and education with a view to producing more "unspolied protoplasm" (as he called babies somewhere). Anthropology also factored into his world view as he felt some "primitive" societies offered us instructive and useful insights into human development.

I've not read all of Tea's interjections here but I'll just note, Olly, you read like a man trying to prove Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism thesis in real time.

 

[baboon2004]

China did what it took England 300 years to do. that's why you can have collective amnesia because you are resting on the blood of thousands who are not even in your historical memory. so am I, before you start pulling a hissy fit.

that's really the historical crux - this idea that the West became industrialised through anything else other than utter misery being visited not only upon the majority of its own populations, but the majority of the world's populations. (Of course this idea infects human rights discourse in its worst Western-centric forms, creating an us-and-them dynamic built on sand)

 

[thirdform]

that's really the historical crux - this idea that the West became industrialised through anything else other than utter misery being visited not only upon the majority of its own populations, but the majority of the world's populations. (Of course this idea infects human rights discourse in its worst Western-centric forms, creating an us-and-them dynamic built on sand)

good book on that:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/20/historybooks.famine

 

[baboon2004]

I've heard of that one, not read it tho yet. I guess Dissensus has discussed before just how resistant to the realities of its own past the UK is. I don't think it's necessarily alone in this (France, US, Spain etc), but there's a remarkable aversion to reality. I think Goethe said something about maturity only coming when one has considered oneself capable of any crime ...when that capacity is never gained at a societal level, it is truly ugly. Especially when those crimes have actually been committed.

 

[droid]

And we've been through this before as well. 200 million, maybe more dead in support of empire and British industrialisation, a repulsive, blood soaked process built on the back of unprecedented global slavery and atrocity. Europe as a whole made the world an abattoir to feed the appetites of its nobles, a tradition proudly upheld by the conquerors of the new world and denied by its citizens.

And yet, we must be most concerned about the perception of the word 'communist'.

 

[droid]

I've heard of that one, not read it tho yet..

Picked up a copy on a free book shelf a while back. Yours if you want it.

 

[Mr. Tea]

And we've been through this before as well. 200 million, maybe more dead in support of empire and British industrialisation, a repulsive, blood soaked process built on the back of unprecedented global slavery and atrocity. Europe as a whole made the world an abattoir to feed the appetites of its nobles, a tradition proudly upheld by the conquerors of the new world and denied by its citizens.

frankly i find this ranking a system over number of deaths caused to be extremely gross, inhumane and insulting.

OK I'm a bit lost here. Is "These genocides were worse than those genocides" a valid argument or not?

 

[baboon2004]

Picked up a copy on a free book shelf a while back. Yours if you want it.

Thanks Droid, appreciate that. I'll PM you

 

[john eden]

OK I'm a bit lost here. Is "These genocides were worse than those genocides" a valid argument or not?

My recollection is that you are the one who kicked off the discusison about genocide, as usual.

So - is it?

And - what are you arguing for?

 

[Mr. Tea]

My recollection is that you are the one who kicked off the discusison about genocide, as usual.

So - is it?

And - what are you arguing for?

Well certainly not imperialism, despite droid's ridiculous "Oh so if you hate communism so much then imperialism is just fine, is it???!!!" strawman.

I thought it was fairly obvious by now that I'm arguing against things, more than for them, in this thread. But if you're going to force to me say something positive then I would say I was broadly in favour of the sort of social democracy that was fairly widespread in many Western countries after WWII, with regulated capitalism coexisting with nationalised industry and public services, progressive taxation and a comprehensive welfare state, with energy, transport, farming and land-use policies brought into line with what we now know about climate change and biodiversity. I suspect that something like this, as half-hearted and milquetoast as it may sound to all you would-be revolutionaries, might be about as good as it gets.

Although it still sounds pretty fucking utopian from where I'm sat, in 2019, in a country that's just been lumbered with Boris "Fucking" Johnson as prime minister and is three months away from committing an act of self-harm unparalleled in modern peacetime history.

 

[john eden]

Well certainly not imperialism, despite droid's ridiculous "Oh so if you hate communism so much then imperialism is just fine, is it???!!!" strawman.

I thought it was fairly obvious by now that I'm arguing against things, more than for them, in this thread. But if you're going to force to me say something positive then I would say I was broadly in favour of the sort of social democracy that was fairly widespread in many Western countries after WWII, with regulated capitalism coexisting with nationalised industry and public services, progressive taxation and a comprehensive welfare state, with energy, transport, farming and land-use policies brought into line with what we now know about climate change and biodiversity. I suspect that something like this, as half-hearted and milquetoast as it may sound to all you would-be revolutionaries, might be about as good as it gets.

Although it still sounds pretty fucking utopian from where I'm sat, in 2019, in a country that's just been lumbered with Boris "Fucking" Johnson as prime minister and is three months away from committing an act of self-harm unparalleled in modern peacetime history.

The point is surely that there are no winners in the game of top trumps: genocide. You are usually very quick to invoke Godwin's law so it seems strange to me that anyone on here to the left of Ed Miliband is instantly challenged by you on the fact of the gulags. Especially when, for thirdform and I - many of the people we draw direct inspiration from ended up in the gulags themselves if they were not fortunate enough to flee.

And "The Spirit of 45" is not as good as it's going to get. Those conditions simply don't exist any more. And they relied on the brutal accumulation of wealth through empire in any case.

 

[DannyL]

Definitely, really interesting to look at Reich in this context - would love to hear more about that. Such a pity that that study was derailed. I'm studying Gestalt at the moment (with the obvious Reich link there through Perls), so thinking about these kind of things a lot. Can't speak with any authority about this at all, but I imagine Gestalt's formulation of muscular armouring would be as bodily instantiations of creative adjustments/defences that serve to inhibit (expression of) the emotions.

Would say you are exactly right about that. The thing with Reich is that he never had the luxury of doing a career end retrospective summing up, 'cos of the FDA case. So you have to kind of piece it together. I get most of this from my friend Peter Jones - he has a book out, I'll send round a PM, see if you're interested. Part of it is also is that he was incredibly intellectual restless and kept moving at a pace that ouutsripped everyone around him, for all of his life.

Was listening to this last night - the podcast is put together by a guy I started following 'cos of Syria stuff. Was pleasantly surprised to hear, in the talk he plays, Reich's Mass Psychology evokved as essential for understanding Trump. It's absolutely germane to this thread in that "what the Right gets right" is an intuitive understanding of the affective, emotional power of politics, the theatre of discourse:

Have you read any of the other texts linked to/referenced in The Body Knows The Score? It's such an extraordinary book, not least because it's a kind of library of interventions. I keep meaning to follow up on all the avenues it suggests - only thing I've explored so far is Family Systems Therapy.

Not really, cos I've been so busy with MA. One striking thing to me is EDMR - the techniques are exactly the same as the beginnings of classical Reichian therapy - eye movement. The founder has turned it into a whole discipline in itself, though Reich's work implies a "repatterning" of the whole body. It's suggested that you begin with the eyes first and gentials last as the sexual fear we all have is so strong it can really fuck things up if unleashed too quickly. My therapist described the eye work as kind of developing an "anchor" into reality that you could hold onto, when some of the heavier stuff is unleashed.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The point is surely that there are no winners in the game of top trumps: genocide.

When people are advocating a certain ideology I think "Has this ideology been associated with the murder of many tens of millions of people?" is a reasonable question to ask.

You are usually very quick to invoke Godwin's law so it seems strange to me that anyone on here to the left of Ed Miliband is instantly challenged by you on the fact of the gulags.

Again with the strawman. There is clearly acres of ideological space between Miliband and "literally Stalin". A space occupied by the current Labour leadership, for instance. I was enthusiastic about Corbyn when he first became Labour leader four years ago and while I've become disillusioned since, this isn't because I think he's going to forcibly collectivise the farms and start a programme of dekulakization.

Especially when, for thirdform and I - many of the people we draw direct inspiration from ended up in the gulags themselves if they were not fortunate enough to flee.

Yeah I know Bolsheviks are not the same as Mensheviks, Trotskites, syndicalists and so on. But this brings us back to baboon's point how too little attention is paid to psychology, compared to ideology, when it comes to figuring out what's wrong with society and how it can be improved. Anyone with the ambition to lead a mass movement, the charisma to attract millions of followers and the toughness and wiliness to survive (perhaps literally) everything their enemies and rivals can throw at them is highly likely to be a psychopathic megalomaniac. And history is littered with utopian movements that have been hijacked by people like this.

And "The Spirit of 45" is not as good as it's going to get. Those conditions simply don't exist any more. And they relied on the brutal accumulation of wealth through empire in any case.

I don't think that's true at all. The class of people in the UK who had the capital to invest in plantations, mines and so on in the overseas colonies and the shipping lines connecting them to the UK made an absolute fortune but I don't think that benefited ordinary people very much. (I mean surely you, of all people, don't subscribe to 'trickle-down' economics?) And if you look outside the UK, there are countries like Ireland and Finland that are also highly economically developed - more so than the UK, in some respects - and which not only didn't have empires of their own but were the imperial possessions of other countries until only about a century ago. What the most developed countries have in common, whether they were colonisers or colonies, is that they weren't under the control of communist governments for much of the last century.

 

[droid]

Breaking a rule by responding to Tea here, but whatever about the other points, the last one is utter bullshit. What the vast majority of developed countries have in common is empire. The only exceptions are nations which had very close proximity and shared culture and ethnicity with empires - like Finland and Ireland (which btw was considered a third world country by most economists until the late 80s), or nations that were not colonised by Europeans like South Korea. I still remember my third year economics teacher drawing a big square and little square in the board and pointing out that if not for our proximity to Europe we would still be a third world country.

There are acres of research done on this in international development and postcolonial studies. Entire libraries that prove how utterly idiotic this argument is.

 

[thirdform]

OK I'm a bit lost here. Is "These genocides were worse than those genocides" a valid argument or not?

given that Europeans forced capitalist industrialisation on the rest of the world (Maoist China included) I didn't take droid's point in that way. Had it been by some bizarre coincidence the ottoman empire which was a world conquering capitalist civilisation then the discussion might be different. But it was british merchants, all to uphold their betters (the aristocracy) but not even hand a bone to the lowers beneath them.

 

[thirdform]

Again with the strawman. There is clearly acres of ideological space between Miliband and "literally Stalin". A space occupied by the current Labour leadership, for instance. I was enthusiastic about Corbyn when he first became Labour leader four years ago and while I've become disillusioned since, this isn't because I think he's going to forcibly collectivise the farms and start a programme of dekulakization.

I don't mean to be funny but barty can rib at me all he likes about my contradictory class position but I certainly didn't hear anyone who was enthusiastic about corbyn in 2015 and then became disillusioned who wasn't some kind of office or media professional. certainly from our vantage point he always seemed ghastly out of touch appealing to an outmoded idea of pre WW II British worker socialist rhetoric or not. methinks you are the one more invested in 20th century ideologies than I am.

 

[thirdform]

like we certainly didn't oppose corbyn because he wasn't revolutionary enough as an individual. we clocked it in 2015. bah humbug.

 

[thirdform]

funny thing is if corbyn was a decent chap you'd be pursuing that braindead electoral strategy like all the UK left, pro gulag types included. Stalinists love corbyn these days just to retain some semblance of relevance and not be utterly dissolved in the solvent of global capitalism.

 

[baboon2004]

Breaking a rule by responding to Tea here, but whatever about the other points, the last one is utter bullshit. What the vast majority of developed countries have in common is empire. The only exceptions are nations which had very close proximity and shared culture and ethnicity with empires - like Finland and Ireland (which btw was considered a third world country by most economists until the late 80s), or nations that were not colonised by Europeans like South Korea. I still remember my third year economics teacher drawing a big square and little square in the board and pointing out that if not for our proximity to Europe we would still be a third world country.

There are acres of research done on this in international development and postcolonial studies. Entire libraries that prove how utterly idiotic this argument is.

Further point on South Korea - SK thrived economically precisely by protecting its nascent industries and ignoring free market dogma (in much the same way as America had done in the 19th century). As did the other 'Asian tiger' economies, as far as I'm aware.

In response to Tea, you might also like to look at what the world's most underdeveloped countries have in common, and then get back. It ain't communism.