In DMs, Linebaugh grudgingly admitted that Wash's post upthread about institutional disillusionment is "kinda cogent ngl"
It is not cogent, it is profoundly stupid and facile, and rather than rebut Linebaugh's confusion in the DMs, I am going to make this case publicly, because it is very important that no one is going around confused thinking Wash has made some cutting point
My post was specifically a formalization of the idea that an institution is itself a selection environment with survival/death analogs, and that a "slow march through the institutions" (a la Adam Curtis's theory of what post-60s counterculture sought) is doomed from the get-go, insofar as success in the institutional game definitionally requires adopting and internalizing the institution's sense of value over a prolonged period of time. Transformation "from within" is much less possible, in this picture, and we are left with the prescription that those who wish to change the world should instead found new institutions, to compete with and displace the old.
This is not a radical, profound, innovative new point. It is very very basic. I have heard people talk about it before, albeit in more vague, confused, and casual ways. I was merely attempting to hammer down what the mechanism is.
Whether or not I am successful, this whole "wah wah institutions aren't perfect" caricature Wash has presented of my stance is the dumbest possible argument one could advance—it could be equally doled out against George Floyd protesters, Bruno Latour, or the women currently being beaten to death in Iran jails. There is nothing "cogent" about this "critique."
This is non-critique is followed by another non sequitur once again alleging (as is Wash's obsession) that I bear resentment towards "The Browns and The Gays"—a claim that is unsourced, unprovoked, and completely factually baseless. No doubt this idea has come into his head via a similar train of illogic that led him to believe I supported a "nonce hotel" and the widespread abuse/exploitation of children, simply because I have historically expressed not just sympathy but admiration towards non-practicing pedophiles (that is, those who cannot help or change their sexual attraction, but nonetheless live abstinent, chaste lives out on moral grounds).
I will re-iterate that admiration here by contrast: Wash is a middleaged worm who spends his days posting psychotic, sexually inappropriate, barely coherent psychoanalytic projections to a twenty-something he's never met, who has asked Wash repeatedly to leave him alone and stop being weird/psychotic/creepy/obsessive. Despite these repeated requests, and despite muting Wash, I still have to deal with ever-escalating and increasingly serious attempts at character/reputation assassination, as well as chiding from boomer Leo that I've "cancelled" Wash. No, I did not "cancel" Wash. I am cancelling him currently. Please stop being psychotically aggro and inappropriate and replying to all my messages with horny projective fantasies about cum, daddy issues, and kiddy porn. If you stop now we can move forward with our lives and pretend to be normal human beings/adults able to co-exist in a space despite differences of opinion.