Whats the difference between

vimothy said:

Maybe you could look at liberalism as a political philosophy that could be caricatured as "politeness" -- everyone is free to have their own opinions as long as they don't impinge on anyone else. But this it is precisely this politeness that prevents anything more radical from emerging and disrupting the capitalist real. K-Punk is at war with liberalism (aka being polite).

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But* this is just another stupid false dichotomy: that the only alternatives are on the one hand "liberalism" (in the perjorative sense used by the significantly-more-radical-than-yow, which means speaking only when spoken to, minding Ps and Qs, not rocking the boat, and every other cliche of PC MOR milquetoaste inoffensive** relativism); and on the other hand, screaming "FASCIST!!!" in the face of anyone with the temerity to question your convictions. I mean, whatever happened to vigorous (but civilised) and impassioned (but informed, reasoned, mature) debate? I mean, I hope that's not a totally oxymoronic idea, is it?


Also, the word 'bourgeois' cracks me up. Especially when people use it, invariably as an insult, without realising that this is pretty much the most bourgeois thing you can possibly say. It's like hipsters banging on all the time about how awful hipsters are, or something.


*obvs I'm aware you're not arguing your own position here exactly
**that said, I think the near-orthodoxy that the worst thing you possibly do is offend someone is extremely damaging to the standard of political discourse in this country

I don't think that anyone will disagree with that. [EDIT: Ha!] But I think that the more interesting aspects of this concern the position of the radical left. What is it and what can it do in the 21st century? Social graces aside, K-Punk's stance is that even radical opposition to Capital has to concede ground to constitute itself. To be radical is ok, pretty cool even, as long as nothing else is touched by this radicalism. Stay in your bubble and do what you want and make sure that you don't prevent other people from doing the same--the essence of "discussing Checkov and weaving their own fucking yoghurt" Guardianism. Liberalism is the new opiate; the cover that Capital advances under--don't rock the boat and you have the possibility of a moderately stimulating existance and even plenty of stuff to distract you from the gnawing abyss at the centre of your existance. Or something.

vimothy said:

Stay in your bubble and do what you want and make sure that you don't prevent other people from doing the same.

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But surely K-punk's strategy of 'refusing politeness' and being either antagonistic or uncommunicative towards his ideological opponents will only reinforce this situation in the long run? I.e., in my experience (and confirmed by the way that many people on this board have responded to k-punk) if all you ever do is shout at people and call them names then quickly enough they'll get pissed off and just ignore anything you have to say, leaving you both trapped back in you isolated little spheres. Whereas if you have the patience to engage in reasoned, civillised debate with them then you just might manage to change their mind about a few things. You'd think that someone who is so vocally committed to 'rationalism' could realise that...

Edit: mind you, perhaps even at this level, there is a distinction to be made between the established, socially accepted forms of 'political impoliteness' - writing angry and provocative journal articles, blog posts, message board replies etc - and more public, active forms of antagonism - i.e. civil disobedience/direct action. However, even then I'm not sure, the lesson of various political summit protests over recent years seems to be that this form of protest is also quite easily contained. Also, unlike some sectors of the radical left, I'm very wary about glorifying/condoning violence of any kind.

Which is fine except that I have been "doing things" outside a radical bubble and haven't found K-Punk's material to be of any use whatsoever - except perhaps as a signal of how not to do things.

Admittedly much of the internet and indeed left wing politics is a load of specialist self-supporting matey navel gazing. Chatting about Studio One matrix numbers or the merits of the Kronstadt uprising have exactly the same impact on the lives of ordinary people, but the former doesn't present itself as anything other than a hobby.

But, flippin' 'eck, it's not like K-Punk et al didn't construct a little matey philosophy/theory/bloggage network for themselves, is it?

Many of us Dope Smoking Dads have experienced some severe antagonism in our lives and workplaces. Sometimes circumstances force us to be beligerant. The idea that the high water mark of our political consciousness should be measured by how we conduct ourselves on an internet message board is farcical and misses the point of why I come here.

Andy: Naturally, I agree with that too. [More Ha!] An ostensible reason for a position, stance or pose is not the sum total of the story. If you were going to start out with an abstract image of a political philosophy and a network of people plugged into it, decide that this philosophy is both correct in its analysis and urgent in its prescriptions, then decide on a set of strategies that best realise this philosophy—perhaps you would be shocked when comparing the abstract ideal to the reality in the Zizekian blogregore. But why expect consistency from others? They’re just frail humans like the rest of us. I bet K-Punk is simply cantankerous and unsocial. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe the story he tells is true. Maybe he’s embodying cold rationalism right down to his very core, even in the most mundane social interactions of internets message board etiquette. Heroism. Very impressive, sir. No other way to describe it. But it's just… well, that’s only a story and I’m a cynic. That’s all.

Tentative Andy said:

the lesson of various political summit protests over recent years seems to be that this form of protest is also quite easily contained.

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To be fair, of course it is, where is it supposed to go? That's not really the point of those protests though is it? Actually as long as protest happens it hasn't been contained at all, and I think a lot is learned from such demonstrations and encounters.

massrock said:

To be fair, of course it is, where is it supposed to go? That's not really the point of those protests though is it? Actually as long as protest happens it hasn't been contained at all, and I think a lot is learned from such demonstrations and encounters.

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There isn't a coherent reason why protests take place, so different people will have different views about what success is.

So for some going on a protest against the G20 summit is a way of bringing your grievances to the attention of those in power.

For others it is more about actually confronting those in power and perhaps even disrupting the summit itself (which was certainly the case at Seattle and Genoa).

(as well as banding together with likeminded people, having a pop at the old bill, trying to pull, and all the other covert reasons people go to these things...)

I think the problem's more to do with people projecting what they want or expect K-Punk to be onto the blog, it's not like he's set up as some guru to tell you how to go about your life. I actually think a lot of his stuff's very astute and humorous, maybe I haven't 'got it' 'properly', but do any of you seriously expect any one individual or source to give you all the 'answers' anyway?

john eden said:

There isn't a coherent reason why protests take place, so different people will have different views about what success is.

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Oh yeah of course, but whatever the reasons I don't think anyone (well...) would expect a protest to result in sudden 'revolution'.

STN said:

I do often wonder how many of the people who grandstand about antagonistic discourse and flouting bourgeouis manners would actually be prepared to be rude or aggressive in person. I suspect not very many.

I read k-punk's blog and it is interesting - I wouldn't live my life by it, and I doubt he seriously expects me to.

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I'm rude all the time and say and do whatever I please. What I write here is pretty much exactly what I'd say in real life, and exactly the way I'd phrase it, too.

Seriously.

K-punk has fun taste is music and films, but I tend to take him "seriously" in an inverse proportion to how seriously he takes himself. IF you know what I'm driving at.

Mr. Tea said:

But* this is just another stupid false dichotomy:

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It's also not based in reality, at all, at least according to what liberalism means in the states: the "liberals" here (by which, I assume, you mean the free-market fundamentalists-- liberal usually means socialist leaning democrat here, but I understand it's the opposite in Europe) are the most obnoxious, rude, riduclous hyperbole spouting cretins on the planet.

Exhibit A: Fox News.

"Liberal" as in liberal democracy--the whole system, not a particular party.

vimothy said:

"Liberal" as in liberal democracy--the whole system, not a particular party.

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Well, then, the whole thing falls apart, doesn't it?

Cultural is local in many respects. In the American south, you have a culture where people put on a very dramatic show of "politeness" and genteel, gracious hospitality, but where, when no one's looking, they backstab like you wouldn't believe. In the northeast, and in NY in particular, nobody is polite, few people waste their time with conventional manners, people tend to be very blunt and impatient with phonies and hypocrites, and frankness is considered a virtue over being "nice". But there's a lot of comraderie and such, probably more than there is where people are "polite"...

There isn't really one way of being in the world because of Kapital or whatever.

full of gems, this one is.

vimothy said:

K-Punk is at war with liberalism (aka being polite).

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yes, I get that. but liberalism does not equal "being polite", nor vice versa. in any regard, surely the front lines of such a war would be struggles against austerity programs in the 3rd/developing world/Global South (whatever the right term is these days) or somesuch, not on message boards utilized largely by lefty Euros & Americans.

not to mention it's a war that was lost a long time ago. such a crushing defeat that the victors can't even be bothered to get irritated at the agonal respirations of Marxism etc.

Mr. Tea said:

the word 'bourgeois' cracks me up....It's like hipsters

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being a Marxist seems, on the whole, quite like being a hipster. but minus the fun, which is the only positive to hipsterism in the first place.

an inverse corollary to the "bourgeois" bit would be that anyone who refers to "the workers" or "labor" or "proles" is almost certainly not any of those things (which, admittedly, is a bit like getting after primitivists for using the Internet to spread their ideas about primitivism).

nomadthethird said:

I tend to take him "seriously" in an inverse proportion to how seriously he takes himself.

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this is a good rule of thumb for all "serious" political discourse, really.

massrock said:

Actually as long as protest happens it hasn't been contained at all, and I think a lot is learned from such demonstrations and encounters.

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everything John E said. but, also, having been to several "such demonstrations" - I'm pretty skeptical of any supposed lessons. every one I've ever been too has gone pretty much the same; a bunch of mostly white, middle-class people (if it's not obv, that includes me) converge on a city, make a token effort to connect whatever it is they're doing to people who aren't white, middle-class activists, everyone hangs out at the convergence center, there's the actual demo, some people get into it with the fuzz, most don't, there's jail solidarity, people write articles about the demo on lefty/anarcho websites, start organizing for the next demo. repeat ad nauseam.

As it happens I was thinking more of direct action protests like reclaim the streets and the road protests. Seeing that you can have an immediate [positive] collective effect can be very empowering and gives people a valuable sense of possibility. It's also an opportunity to find out where shared values, oppositional and affirmative, might actually lie, in amongst the ambiguity, and to fine tune ideas and commitments in the heat of a situation. That's aside from any successes or failures in relation to ostensible primary aims or publicity for causes.

But the same applies to the anti-capitalism / globalisation (ill defined as those may be) protests. Andy said they were 'easily contained', the alternative scenario is that they immediately precipitate some kind of total societal transformation, but of course nobody actually expects this.

To me a 'demonstration' is more a demonstration to ourselves and to each other than a message aimed at any putative powers-that-be. That's not such a bad thing by the way, even if we all should happen to be white and middle class.

I can agree with the scepticism to an extent, although that's really quite a banal thing to say wrt mass protests (and also sounds not unlike a hipster dismissal of hipsters...), but the gestures are still important in a number of ways I think, even if it's 'just' about young people sorting out their collective political compasses.

Whatever, this all sounds way to serious, but I do believe in people going out there and showing that they care about something or condemn something even if they can't quite agree on what that is.

Room with a view said:

untrue

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Isn't this the name of a Burial album?

massrock said:

As it happens I was thinking more of direct action protests like reclaim the streets and the road protests.

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as it happens, I've been to those too. not road protests, b/c they were/are much more of a British thing, but RTS, many Critical Masses, even some w/o catchy names, etc it's not much different. less people, more confused (or irate, if you're blocking them getting to/from work) stares from onlookers. and they're usually not very "direct".

To me a 'demonstration' is more a demonstration to ourselves and to each other than a message aimed at any putative powers

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yeh, temporary autonomous zone, blah blah blah, spare me. I wish someone would've told me that the point wasn't actually to, yunno, protest the policies of the WTO or whatever, but to make us all feel good about ourselves. cos there's easier to ways to do that than catching a baton upside the head. of course if it makes you or anyone else feel personally empowered then fantastic. I find that, for me, teaching ESL classes or serving free food are 1,000,000x more worthwhile in every sense than marching around with a placard and/or getting into it with riot cops in some town you don't live in; if you're protesting something in the abstract, that's likely a bad sign. but that's just me, and maybe I'm just a sad auld jaded bastard.

Room with a view said:

i
if so what are they?...that the war is lost, abandon hope or is the lesson in insurgency and assymetric warfare in places like afghanistan and palestine?

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the idea of leftist bloggers attempting to practice "insurgency" is grimly hilarious (solid black comedy there for someone to make). 1st world insurgents have a terrible, terrible track record anyway - you can't be a fish with no sea to swim in - and they have roughly nothing to do with "places like Afghanistan & Palestine".

and incidentally I know I've disparaged K-punik a bit but asking some random dude with a blog to "have the answers" is a bit much, don't you think? I mean, dude, go get your own answers.