poetix

we murder to dissect
I would have said a primary justification for shutting down LD50 was that its invited speakers were promulgating lies which harmed people. Art sometimes avails itself of the alibi that it is not asserting in its own name that "things are thus and so", and so can't be held to account for the truthfulness or otherwise of the statements it exhibits for consideration. But Peter Brimelow of VDARE, to take one example of an LD50-invited speaker, is an ideologist - a racist ideologist and polemicist. He shows up, he speaks, he tells filthy lies-which-harm-people about race and immigration. To demand that this be treated as an exhibit, an artefact available for disinterested consideration, is to shield him and his fascist ilk with a cloak of foolishness.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
If one is going to make it a criterion of something's being defensible as "free speech" that it must be truthful, then one is implicitly asserting the truthfulness of any speech one chooses to defend under that rubric. Which was rather the point of the article. Is Peter Brimelow a truth-teller?
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
as it happens, from the very, very little i know about the situation i agree with joe. i think what he did was genuinely commendable.

where he gets into problems is with all the other shit he gets up to. he's gravitated towards this gleeful, adolescent revelling in culture war stirring. if he was more intellectually and emotionally honest his positions would hold more water. he detracts from the point he's trying to make when he behaves like a rubbish nu-metal bond villain.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
If it were just a question of someone putting together an exhibition full of frogtwitter memes than it would be hard to care either way. Idiot artworld edgelords thinking "ironic" racism and sexism are good ways to tweak the noses of the establishment is not a new thing, and neither is frantic overreaction from idiot artworld pharisees who can't tell when they're being baited. The two feed off each other, in a nova criminal spiral-of-escalation sort of way. The outcome is always a shitnado of boring ugliness and stupidity; anyone in their right mind would steer well clear.

The inclusion of Skype talks held in secret with straightforwardly fascist characters like Brimelow raises the level of aggro somewhat, to the point where I think it renders the free speech defense moot, unless you want to be fully absolutist about the issue, in which case I think you are going to look a bit ridiculous suing people for making shit up about you. An adequate response to "you are a fascist who wrote a text titled 'Towards a Hitlerian Disability Politics'" from most people would be to say "obviously I'm not, and obviously I didn't". Joe's problem is that he writes poems calling antifascists scumbags, and lectures denouncing the "psychological structure of antifascism" as projection and mental enfeeblement, alongside paeans to Trump's kingly charisma - which along with the Evola cosplay makes him look rather like the sort of person to whom writing something with that sort of title might occur as, at least, an amusing jape at the expense of those humourless lefties who think it's unkind and inappropriate to joke about such things.
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
If you think lying is the same as free speech, I don't know what to tell you.

If you think spending days on end emailing employers to get people to lose work because you disagree with them is ok, I also don't know what to tell you. Do you not think there are lines best not cross, or does anything go just because you think you're a good guy ('anti-fascist')?

It isn't me that has made the claim that "the right to openly discuss ideas must be defended" in the context of a fash art gallery.

I have, in fact, argued that these things are contextual. And that the likely harm resulting from discussions, or ideas, or political positions, is a factor worthy of consideraton. I have argued precisely that there are lines that should not be crossed.

"But who chooses?" has been a consistent whine from Josef K on here over the past few months. And now we have the answer. The people who get to choose what is spoken about are those able to leverage their cultural capital to raise sufficient funds to sue people.
 

Nina

Active member
It isn't me that has made the claim that "the right to openly discuss ideas must be defended" in the context of a fash art gallery.

I have, in fact, argued that these things are contextual. And that the likely harm resulting from discussions, or ideas, or political positions, is a factor worthy of consideraton. I have argued precisely that there are lines that should not be crossed.

"But who chooses?" has been a consistent whine from Josef K on here over the past few months. And now we have the answer. The people who get to choose what is spoken about are those able to leverage their cultural capital to raise sufficient funds to sue people.

You're just avoiding the point. Lying about people under the guise of 'left-wing' political activism *is* the dominant form of cultural capital. People make whole careers these days 'cancelling' artists and works they claim not to approve of. If I started lying about you, you would ask me to stop.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
Lying about people under the guise of 'left-wing' political activism *is* the dominant form of cultural capital. People make whole careers these days 'cancelling' artists and works they claim not to approve of.

Who has made a "career" doing such a thing? Some people have a possibly unhealthy enthusiasm for it, but for whom is it more than a minor hustle, a positional skirmish? What can possibly justify a claim that this is "the dominant form of cultural capital" anywhere outside the bizarre artworld vendetta that's somehow seemingly become your entire world?

If I started lying about you, you would ask me to stop.

If someone started hosting talks by the race-baiting fascist Peter Brimelow in my neighbourhood, I'd ask them to stop.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
You're just avoiding the point. Lying about people under the guise of 'left-wing' political activism *is* the dominant form of cultural capital. People make whole careers these days 'cancelling' artists and works they claim not to approve of. If I started lying about you, you would ask me to stop.


you can lie about me, my leftbook alias is bruno repossi. good luck! stanford prison experiment and all.

but even if what you said is true there are places where being a fascist is fairly uncontroversial and even accepted as a normal part of political discourse, (even the far left accept the mhp as a valid political party!) Turkey for instance. so Eden's point is right, this has just been a quixotic attempt to play the pr game except now he's asking his weirdo friends to be good appendages cashing their fraction of distributed surplus value that was already appropriated from them anyway. ok then luv.

and left wing activism doesn't exist does it? this isn't the 60s, where is the rise in union militancy or a labour movement exerting its pressure on the state?
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
You're just avoiding the point. Lying about people under the guise of 'left-wing' political activism *is* the dominant form of cultural capital.

People make whole careers these days 'cancelling' artists and works they claim not to approve of. If I started lying about you, you would ask me to stop.

It's not, although I do understand why you might feel like it is at the moment.

I take no pleasure in saying this, but if you started lying about me now, I don't think that would count for very much as your stock in the marketplace of cultural capital has diminished somewhat in recent months. Whereas mine has never counted for very much at all. Another example of these things being contextual.

But obviously I hope you don't feel the need to lie about me and I hope despite our differences, you don't feel I have malicously falsified your position or information about you. (I have now twice edited my posts on here after we've discussed them.)

I've already made it clear that I think Luke Tuner sounds like a dick. I don't think making things up about people (if that is what he has done) is a good tactic and I think Josef has done and said enough stupid shit to be sufficent without inventing things anyway. I also think it is unbecoming of antifascists to report death threats received via social media to the police, fwiw.

People have lied about me - and said terrible things, far worse than has been said about you and Josef, about projects I have been involved in - in the national media. (Admittedly I didn't lose work over it, which is probably largely down to the fact that I don't make a living out of that sort of cultural/political work and have a permanent contract. Touch wood.)
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Of course I'm not going to start lying about you! Or anyone for that matter - I'm simply trying to say there's a difference between opionated judgement and deliberate factual untruths. But I am so tired of all of this. I just want people to stop lying and to stop people losing work.


I mean if I did a long youtube rant about how all white people are islamophobes and put my real name to it I'd lose my jobs and probably be reported to prevent for pro-terroristic activities and like I'm not even saying anything cancel worthy in left culture there. that's the thing, left culture is a bit of a boogyman to not face up to the fact that totalitarian state capitalism has subsumed all aspects of the left to its logic. your job wasn't lost because you did a video with DC miller and affiliated to him, that was just the immediate triggering ideological excuse, your job was lost because you have now been rendered surplus to requirements. at uni because left theory has no content anymore, at the wire because they are struggling to actually entice a readership. people actually talk about being repped in the wire more than they pay for a yearly sub.
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
Of course I'm not going to start lying about you! Or anyone for that matter - I'm simply trying to say there's a difference between opionated judgement and deliberate factual untruths. But I am so tired of all of this. I just want people to stop lying and to stop people losing work.

OK. I don't think the course of action you are pursuing will achieve this. I may be wrong though.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Lewis Parker of Morbid Books, known to some as Bangpuss (late of this parish) has thrown his hat into the ring:

morbid.JPG
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
You know Lewis...

Snark, then! Wherever you may be,
'For I am the Lord of the Edge', said He...
 
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