the alt-right

Yeah, the dumbest bits of this is just his received conspiracy theory conflating “post-modernism” and “(((Cultural Marxism)))” together

just ime most of the woke social justice warrior types i know personally are generally against "postmodernist" thought or completely ignorant of it.

(more likely to be marxists, anarchists, etc.)

I'm not a humanities or social science scholar but it does seem to me that the people who are really into things like contemporary critical race theory, post-colonial cultural criticism, or queer musicology are working from a pov that's fairly different from (and in some ways opposed to) a classical Marxist analysis, right?

I'm not a humanities or social science scholar

Unless music theory counts as "humanities or social sciences". It probably does.

Derrida wasn't really interesting in founding a prescriptive political program so much as describing the sort of "abyssal decision" that goes into the founding of such political (or ethical) programs. He wants to hold them open, accountable. Kinda of Weberian insistence on the fundamental irrationality of all value judgements--not in the service of nihilism but a kind futurity or fundamental openness.

Foucault fits better with the SJW ethos, particularly his late work on subjectivity (I think?), but he'd be resistant to any consistent political program as well due to the aforementioned insistence on radical subjectivity.

If I had to try to give maximum generosity to Peterson here, the idea of "intersectionality" might seem to inherently require a quasi-postmodern rejection of the Marxist metanarrative focused on economic class struggle as the chief determinant of historical development, treating it instead as one micronarrative of oppression and liberation, alongside race, oppression of women, gender identity, disability, etc., and re-centring subjective experience. xp

(Just brainstorming; again, not an expert with this)

(I sometimes think one useful way to think about Derrida is that he accomplished a final split between Reason as foundational or as a grounding of value judgments as and Reason as a endless critical process. Foucault points out something similar in his "What is Enlightenment?" essay. If postmodernism means anything with these two it might refer to their acceptance of that split.)

I'm not a humanities or social science scholar but it does seem to me that the people who are really into things like contemporary critical race theory, post-colonial cultural criticism, or queer musicology are working from a pov that's fairly different from (and in some ways opposed to) a classical Marxist analysis, right?

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Wednesday, January 24, 2018 1:44 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, this is true, they are often also epistemologically indebted to post-structuralism. but if i were to take e.g. post-colonial studies (the only one of these you've mentioned that I've read much of) there's a lot of ink been shed from that field distancing itself from these other, prior post-isms

Foucault fits better with the SJW ethos, particularly his late work on subjectivity (I think?), but he'd be resistant to any consistent political program as well due to the aforementioned insistence on radical subjectivity.

this is something i'm interested in bc when i was reading foucault back in the day i thought that his points were generally that power is bidirectional and that power is many things (knowledge, sex, discipline), but it seems like he has become somehow metonymic for a critique that often unidirectional and i wonder to what extent does he truly resist that description or is that the inevitable conclusion from his work. i just don't know his entire oeuvre well enough to say but i suspect he's mostly being misused?

I don't know what it is but I've always had a hard time getting a handle on Foucault's overall project. Lee Braver's "A Thing of This World" I remember being very enlightening but I've forgotten it mostly lol.

in my experience on the ground the use of any of these philosophers tends to be ad hoc and used as shorthand background authority rather than explicit engagement w/ whatever political project is claiming the thinker. so figuring out whether foucault's ideas are truly buttressing the cause is maybe a waste of time from the get go and anyway if you've read enough derrida hopefully you can simultaneously aver the thesis + antithesis in the text.

Trolling r/philosophy for replies:

my work here is done pic.twitter.com/tzqxL50DFc

— Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) January 24, 2018

less flattering reddit comment that does accurately summarize my feelings on jung pic.twitter.com/Rat75uvp4j

— Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) January 24, 2018

I'm also enjoying that pretty much the whole thread for it on the philosophy subreddit looks like this pic.twitter.com/mfdi7cNDWI

— Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) January 24, 2018

If I had to try to give maximum generosity to Peterson here, the idea of "intersectionality" might seem to inherently require a quasi-postmodern rejection of the Marxist metanarrative focused on economic class struggle as the chief determinant of historical development, treating it instead as one micronarrative of oppression and liberation, alongside race, oppression of women, gender identity, disability, etc., and re-centring subjective experience. xp

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), 24. januar 2018 22:59 (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, as the article says, the foundational text about 'The Postmodern Condition' is all about the lack of metanarratives, so yeah.

I did know that; I was just trying to see a way in which "postmodern neo-Marxism" could make some kind of sense as a description for what I think JP is trying to describe.

Jack Posobiec tells me the Bumble account purporting to be him that got some attention today is fake: "Everyone knows I have a hot Eastern European wife and we just got married."

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) January 24, 2018

yesssssssss

i.e. the contemporary intersectional/identity-oriented left, esp in academia, which applies a sort of 'class struggle' model but thinks it is wrong to look one single type of class, or apply a single overarching objective analytical pov, to the exclusion of others. (That said, Peterson still casts his net far too wide.)

it's really not these thinker's fault if activists decide their work is useful to their project. it's like political claims on the bible - you see what you want to see esp when writers are intentionally layering meaning, obscuring, contradicting, etc.

I did know that; I was just trying to see a way in which "postmodern neo-Marxism" could make some kind of sense as a description for what I think JP is trying to describe.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), 24. januar 2018 23:38 (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And you're otm :) A lot again has to do with 68, imo. The idea that this narrative of French Revolutions, from 1789 onwards, has been thwarted, and everyone needs to figure out what to do next. Seven different types of maoists shouting at each other at the exact same time Mao was at his most murderous. A need to look elsewhere all of a sudden, be it to the third world or back in the past, or to marginalized groups.

this Twitter thread confirms what I kinda figured was true - these guys and gals are massive shitheads but they're more driven by fame than dreams of a white ethnostate

Thread on the @xychelsea shitstorm. First, read this: https://t.co/noDse7rPU3

— Contra 🌸 (@ContraPoints) January 24, 2018

Peterson doesn't appear to be very well read. His entire shtick consists of strawmanning the shit out of the left from the vantage point of his media-fueled position as a learnèd, heroic scholar who dares shake academia's ivory foundations by telling it like it is, thus submitting his ideas to the democratic court of populist opinion rather than that of his elitist peers. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it requires an acute sense of responsibility, one that is conspicuously lacking in his case, since he systematically paints his adversaries as dangerous obfuscators – an easy charge in a playing field defined by its carnivalesque 'gotcha' moments and worship of 'common sense'. Steven Pinker tends to do this as well so it may just be a common trait among so-called 'public' intellectuals.

Derrida does have a lot to do with contemporary social justice discourse though. Way more than Marx does. Derrida’s “big idea,” putting it as crudely as possible, is that identity is constituted in difference, that the process of differing/deferring proceeds by acts of violence and exclusion as one term becomes dominant and the other subordinate, and that therefore the critical examination of any concept should begin with an attempt to uncover this originaty moment of violence. This seems really similar to, say, microaggression theory—this hyperattentiveness to language that carried within itself the stain of history, which it reproduces unconsciously as it continually remakes the world. I can’t say for sure but I think Derrida’s work probably had a lot to do with the way progressives think about language and history today even if they don’t know it.

There are typos and tense errors in there but still. Derrida’s work is as powerful as Nietzsche’s or Marx’s in that it demands a kind of reckoning — once you “see things” as he saw them it’s hard for a while to unsee it. As a meme I think the kind of structure of his thought had a big impact. And he’s an unnerving writer to read too because if you think like he does you can never “affirm” anything, because concepts are in flux, and they are always already in the process of becoming their opposite. (I can’t really describe how this works, but it is one of his big ideas. Martin Hagglund is good on this — the co-implication of opposites, death is constitutive of life, etc.) All of this presents challenges to the western project of trying to ground beliefs in something solid, human freedom or reason or earlier on God or whatever.

He deserves a better class of critic than Peterson thouh.

I guess my main issue is like, duh, the idea of a postmodern neo-marxist cabal is conspiratorial and idiotic. But I also think ideas matter and when people say that the radical skepticism of Derrida can be corrosive to institutions, even if only humanities departments, I don’t think they’re necessarily being “crazy.” I don’t think Derrida would find them crazy either. As Frederik said, Derrida’s thought came out of a crisis.

otm

Also the alt right thread is the perfect forum for this discussion. The left should try to understand its own intellectual genealogy if they want to refute the fake versions the alt right proffers.

Undecidability, aporia, the pharmakon: all of these 'concepts' (barely concepts, if we go by his philosophy) are frankly disquieting when taken seriously (which they should be). This undermines both Peterson and his nemeses, which is why very few are willing to take up Derrida's mantle today.

There's nothing angelically ethical about his take on difference, either, which is shot through with strangeness and uncanniness (see his beef with Levinas, re: violence). And yet, in spite of that, he advocates hospitality. Ethics for with the acknowledgment that it is grounded on groundlessness, that if there is no risk gestures of welcome are meaningless.

*Ethics starts with

It's typo night.

Fun with Tucker Carlson:

Tucker Carlson wishes someone would let him know what a “white nationalist” is and how he qualifies. I gave it a shot: pic.twitter.com/BzW7iYBiBp

— Jack Smith IV (@JackSmithIV) January 24, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhdEbOzcN1U

It’s kinda funny seeing these high falutin criticisms of Peterson when his core audience is like 15 year old boys

Schadenfreude today: prominent alt-righter with a pregnant wife tries to use feminist dating app, gets dunked on

https://www.fastcompany.com/40521433/bumble-bans-alt-right-darling-jack-pobosiec-in-a-very-public-way

looool

white supremacists are always the best argument against their own ideologies

just tremendous opsec from a guy with 'veteran navy intel officer' in his twitter bio

'incel officer' more like amirite

Peterson is posting on twitter in barely concealed accounts again:

https://www.twitter.com/WeeEgalitarian/status/957873627311038465

https://www.twitter.com/shujaxhaider/status/957949776129155072

https://www.twitter.com/ETZithrow/status/958052099752939520

corny. these people are all so fuckin corny before you even consider their ass opinions

https://alternativeright.hopenothate.com/my-year-inside-the-international-alt-right

In march, spencer is coming to speak at the university where I work. He either threatened or actually pursued legal action and they capitulated. Since they had to give him a venue, he will speak in what is essentially the ag school cow barn at the ass-end of campus, on the Monday of Spring Break week when nobody will be around.

I'm already seeing tons of flyers, ranging from "we should meet at the library to talk about the impact of this" to a number rather large posters about attacking a group of nazi marchers in 2006 and running them out of town and how they can't wait to do it again.

This should be fun. I'm kind of glad I'll be out of town.

There was still a local ARA chapter when I was there, of course that was almost 20 years ago. Here's hoping they're still around.

lmao @ "Hope Not Hate" and the "alternative right" (didn't read the actual piece tbf)

many xps. I'm reading derrida and foucault again because of this thread <3 thank you, jordan peterson. you kermit-voiced sack of albertan shit

wtf i love jordan peterson now

its been over a week since ive let everyone who helped me out of prison down, so many of you have helped me thru tough times, i tried too hard to do too much, im sorry im a human being and not a symbol, i have hit rock bottom

— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) January 30, 2018

Chelsea Manning not feeling too great about hanging with the fash

In all seriousness, though, everyone should check out Derrida's seminars. Due to their self-evidently pedagogical and oral nature, they're more idea-oriented and hence more approachable (as well as more easily translatable into English). They're also more explicitly 'political' than many might expect, giving the lie to the all-too widespread, quasi indestructible notion according to which he never seriously engaged with anything beyond philosophy and, at best, literature.

sorta tangent to peterson's fame i really fuckin hate the centrist anti-left crew and their wounded/smug act: the weinstein brothers, sam harris, quillette mag.

haidt, maher, chait, ~sullivan fit that description too.

yup. chait didn't used to, i didn't think! but maybe he did.

there's the feminist-not-feminist annex too: paglia, sommers, roiphe