British Legion Poppies
- Thread starter owengriffiths
- Start date
N
nomadologist
Guest
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzing. Good one. I'm glad you can contribute to the discussion of Vimothy's childish, infantile, and quite sad misreading of the Left's established canon.
vimothy
yurp
Oh well, in that case...
Nick Land (of Ccru) - Hyperstition:
This blog is not primarily political, in the sense of partisan (although of course I love northanger’s notion of “hyperstitional partisans” - even if it is is hard to read this as anything other than anticipatory, at best). For that reason it is easy to be distracted from topics which trigger intense partisan rancour, aiming somehow to avoid them. The trouble is, as everyone knows, such topics are precisely the ones everyone really cares about. Either we find a way to discuss them productively here, or we learn to tolerate perpetual seething hatefest - or we might as well give up.
First consider ‘Capitalism.’ There is really no doubt that whatever is happening on this planet is doing so under conditions guided by capital production. Whether affirmed or negated, the primacy of ‘capitalist’ imperatives is assumed, if only because the zones of maximal regenerative capital formation (the USA, China) exert such extraordinary pressure on their relatively retarded contemporaries (‘retarded’ defined within the framework of ‘capitalist rationality’ of course). Marx certainly had no doubts about it, and if his successors have radically transcended his stance in this respect they have kept very quiet about doing so. Islamism, too, is quite explicit about ‘capitalism’ as the negative definition of its ambition - ‘after communism, capitalism’ (to the grave, and if anyone really has a problem with the citational basis for this, I’ll dig heaps up)....
First consider ‘Capitalism.’ There is really no doubt that whatever is happening on this planet is doing so under conditions guided by capital production. Whether affirmed or negated, the primacy of ‘capitalist’ imperatives is assumed, if only because the zones of maximal regenerative capital formation (the USA, China) exert such extraordinary pressure on their relatively retarded contemporaries (‘retarded’ defined within the framework of ‘capitalist rationality’ of course). Marx certainly had no doubts about it, and if his successors have radically transcended his stance in this respect they have kept very quiet about doing so. Islamism, too, is quite explicit about ‘capitalism’ as the negative definition of its ambition - ‘after communism, capitalism’ (to the grave, and if anyone really has a problem with the citational basis for this, I’ll dig heaps up)....
Read the whole thing, including the comments and you might better understand the difference of opinion (right and left) within Ccru.
The question, remember, is not whether D&G are "radically anti-capitalist" - that's your reading, and that's fine - but whether people can and do read them in that way. It's pretty clear that they can and do.
But rather than have a civilised debate about the relative merits of any of this, you're just going to carry on fitting and spluttering regardless and telling me that it's impossible...
N
nomadologist
Guest
You mean the same day you understand Freud, Lacan or any kind of psychoanalytical hermeneutics?
hundredmillionlifetimes
Banned
This ex-poppy thread has certainly become a floating signifier!
But what's really ironic about the apologists for all the current (and proposed) Western invasions and interventions is their inability to see how all such interventions, particularly in the Middle East (largely via US neo-conservative dogma), has directly provoked a resurgent religious climate from which political Islam continues to benefit. We all know of the longstanding connections between the US and the numerous political-Islamists like bin Laden that they directly helped to create in the first place; so we should hardly be surprised to discover that the US appears to be totally indifferent to the fact that the previously secular Iraq has acquired its first Islamic constitution, that - indeed - all of the countries in that region of the world are increasingly turning to political Islam, from Pakistan to Iran, from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Lebanon to Palestine, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, etc. It more corresponds to an inter-exciting feedback mechanism in which so-called Western 'Islamophobia' feeds the development of political Islam which strikes back (9/11 etc), leading to an escalation of Western interventions (combined with both repressive domestic policies and a retreat into religious obscurantism), leading to yet a further Islamicization of politics in those countries, and so on.
Objectively, then, the US-led onslaught in the Middle East has nothing whatsoever to do with the religion of Islam - at all. On the contrary, it has led directly to the strengthing of fundamentalist regimes almost everywhere, in keeping with the neo-con Project For A New Fundamentalist Century. As K-punk argued some time ago, "Structurally, as is evident, the role of the 'Islamic Terror' is to fill the gap left by the disintegration of Stalinism. That is why Saddam's quasi-Stalinist Baathist regime was the perfect transitional object for the US in the immediate years after the Cold War ended. Saddam was no more a Muslim than Stalin was a Christian. But he was 'Muslim' in the way required by the racializing fantasy; Middle Eastern, dark complexion, not Israeli.... This racist delirium, which equates sworn enemies like Saddam and bin Laden (the only thing they have in common is that they were both funded by the US), will therefore find victims amongst Sikhs, Hindus , atheists, anyone, in fact, whose skin tone or look belongs to a certain ill-defined category, as well as amongst Muslims. So any defence of Islam spectacularly misses the point of what Islamophobia actually involves."
The way forward, then, for those opposed both to political Islam and to US fundamentalist hegemony in these countries as elsewhere requires a politicization of Islam rather than the Islamicization of politics, but as the latter seems to be what is largely practised by all the multiple permutations of really existing political Islam, this is a tall order.
But at least some are doing it.
Extract
Political Islam exists because it was created in the final analysis by the policies of Western governments. And, I am not referring to the Iraq war alone or Western intervention in Afghanistan. These are only the most recent examples. Western governments have basically been supporting political Islam for some twenty to thirty years now, including the Taliban vis-à-vis the former Soviet Union. They created the climate for the problems we are faced with today. Political Islam rose to power when Western powers supported Khomeini against the Shah in order to control and in fact defeat the revolution in Iran. These are the roots of the political Islam that we see today. And that is only one aspect of the reality we are faced with.
The other is the way that Islam and religion are promoted as a whole in Western society. With Reaganism, Thatcherism, and neo-conservatism, religion has been given a growing role in education and our system of values in the name of multiculturalism and toleration of cultures.
Basically, then, if you want to find a solution to a problem, you must first understand what the problem is. The problem is not extremism. The problem is not only terrorism. The problem is political Islam.
....
First pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East. Second, declare that you support secularism everywhere in the world. Break ties with religious regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran. Condemn Islam in government everywhere, including in Saudi Arabia or other countries allied to the West as well. Don't put West and East as a factor in your position and fight against terrorism. Don't just call it terrorism but political Islam. Fight political Islam and religion in political systems anywhere in the world.
The second step is to declare secularism and civil society as a universal value and goal for governments and people all over the world. It means that you have to condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Mr. Karzai in Afghanistan. It is not only a question of withdrawal from certain countries but the promotion of civil values, secular and humanistic values of the French revolution all over the world.
They can do this easily but they don't because when you think about it, you see that this is actually part of the policies of Western governments and the Western ruling classes. The problem is that having Islam and religion as a whole as a component of the political system is part of the new doctrine of Western neo-conservatism. It is a part of Thatcherism and Reaganism. It is a part of what Mr. Bush as done in the recent US election; his campaign was promoting himself as a representative of god in the White House.
This has to be fought. Everybody knows that Western governments won't do this because their policies won't allow it; they are fact promoting the exact opposite. They want to have some sort of even extreme Islam active in the world and support governments like Saudi Arabia for example and at the same time they do not want terrorism. You cannot do this. Either you stand against the whole thing and declare secularism, civil societal values, universal, humanistic philosophy of society, or you are condemned to having terrorism occurring all over the world again and again. That is the fact of life these days. A very concrete way of fighting political Islam is declaring and defining secularism as a universal value everywhere in the world.
Political Islam exists because it was created in the final analysis by the policies of Western governments. And, I am not referring to the Iraq war alone or Western intervention in Afghanistan. These are only the most recent examples. Western governments have basically been supporting political Islam for some twenty to thirty years now, including the Taliban vis-à-vis the former Soviet Union. They created the climate for the problems we are faced with today. Political Islam rose to power when Western powers supported Khomeini against the Shah in order to control and in fact defeat the revolution in Iran. These are the roots of the political Islam that we see today. And that is only one aspect of the reality we are faced with.
The other is the way that Islam and religion are promoted as a whole in Western society. With Reaganism, Thatcherism, and neo-conservatism, religion has been given a growing role in education and our system of values in the name of multiculturalism and toleration of cultures.
Basically, then, if you want to find a solution to a problem, you must first understand what the problem is. The problem is not extremism. The problem is not only terrorism. The problem is political Islam.
....
First pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East. Second, declare that you support secularism everywhere in the world. Break ties with religious regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran. Condemn Islam in government everywhere, including in Saudi Arabia or other countries allied to the West as well. Don't put West and East as a factor in your position and fight against terrorism. Don't just call it terrorism but political Islam. Fight political Islam and religion in political systems anywhere in the world.
The second step is to declare secularism and civil society as a universal value and goal for governments and people all over the world. It means that you have to condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Mr. Karzai in Afghanistan. It is not only a question of withdrawal from certain countries but the promotion of civil values, secular and humanistic values of the French revolution all over the world.
They can do this easily but they don't because when you think about it, you see that this is actually part of the policies of Western governments and the Western ruling classes. The problem is that having Islam and religion as a whole as a component of the political system is part of the new doctrine of Western neo-conservatism. It is a part of Thatcherism and Reaganism. It is a part of what Mr. Bush as done in the recent US election; his campaign was promoting himself as a representative of god in the White House.
This has to be fought. Everybody knows that Western governments won't do this because their policies won't allow it; they are fact promoting the exact opposite. They want to have some sort of even extreme Islam active in the world and support governments like Saudi Arabia for example and at the same time they do not want terrorism. You cannot do this. Either you stand against the whole thing and declare secularism, civil societal values, universal, humanistic philosophy of society, or you are condemned to having terrorism occurring all over the world again and again. That is the fact of life these days. A very concrete way of fighting political Islam is declaring and defining secularism as a universal value everywhere in the world.
i had my copy signed by whatshername
N
nomadologist
Guest
Ok, I read this. And what Nick is saying is that the left is NOT RADICALLY ANTI-CAPITALIST ENOUGH. Do you know what hyperstition means?
vimothy
yurp
Are you for fucking real? Nick Land is the most right-wing, pro-capitalist person I have ever communicated with. Read the post again, Nomadologist.
N
nomadologist
Guest
http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/006950.html
November 28, 2005
Left Hyperstition 1: The Fictions of Capital
November 28, 2005
Left Hyperstition 1: The Fictions of Capital
N
nomadologist
Guest
From the essay you linked to.
vimothy
yurp
That isn't written by Nick, nomadologist.
vimothy
yurp
And?
N
nomadologist
Guest
k-punk on hyperstition:
"Secondly, since capitalism is itself inherently fictional, it is essential that counter-capitalist fictions be produced. Fiction here would not mean an 'imaginary' (in a Lacanian or any other sense) alternative but an already-operative generator of possibilities.
Fiction ensures that things are not only themselves. Capital is the most effective sorcery operative on the planet at the moment because it is adept at transforming banal objects into a sublimely mysterious commodities. Trans-substantiation. The allure of the commodity arises from the non-coincidence of the object with itself. (cf Zizek's famous analysis of the 'nothingness' of Coke.) Anti-capitalism needs to take the form not only of a demystifying, depressive desublimation but of the production of alternative modes of sublimation."
"Secondly, since capitalism is itself inherently fictional, it is essential that counter-capitalist fictions be produced. Fiction here would not mean an 'imaginary' (in a Lacanian or any other sense) alternative but an already-operative generator of possibilities.
Fiction ensures that things are not only themselves. Capital is the most effective sorcery operative on the planet at the moment because it is adept at transforming banal objects into a sublimely mysterious commodities. Trans-substantiation. The allure of the commodity arises from the non-coincidence of the object with itself. (cf Zizek's famous analysis of the 'nothingness' of Coke.) Anti-capitalism needs to take the form not only of a demystifying, depressive desublimation but of the production of alternative modes of sublimation."
N
nomadologist
Guest
I know. It's written by k-punk, and it is excellently written.
You sure do contain multitudes - and are in good company! - the most famous reader (read: misinterpreter) of a pro-capitalist D&G is Zizek (Organs Without Bodies: Deleuze and Consequences) :slanted:
Anyway whatever about CCRU, what about what Deleuze says? Does this look pro-capitalist to you?
from http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=31322645&blogID=219898222Deleuze said:
from http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=02/11/18/1941201Deleuze said:
N
nomadologist
Guest
Read that again.
N
nomadologist
Guest
He disagrees with Marx, as do a lot of people. He sees Islamic fundamentalism as the part of a binary with capitalism. He may be "right wing" but he's getting there using far left ideology.
N
nomadologist
Guest
thank you
vimothy
yurp
*Oh for god's sake*
This is like having an argument with a senile relative.
Nick is saying that capitalism is leading humanity towards a future that many on the right (especially cultural conservaties), natural defenders of capitalism, may not like. He is correct, IMO. You can find similar stuff at written at the Cato Institute. Unsuprisingly, the right is not simply one homogeneous block.
vimothy
yurp
I tried to allude to that upthread. Nomadologist either ignored it, missed it or couldn't make the connection.
Well, whatevs - they're philosophers, not finance experts. I think they're misreading markets themselves there. In any case, I feel that the aspects of D&G that appeal (or at least, did at one time) to me most -- the image of the rhizome, for an obvious e.g. -- are best served by capitalism and not communism / statism or Islamism.