I wish I had something more positive to offer, but I've got nothing. This is where we're at. I'm glad you brought up climate change because what little discussion about it there was in the US has all but disappeared. Meanwhile we've crossed every single climate threshold completely unabated and are on the brink of an extinction level event (with a whimper, not a bang, but an ELE nonetheless). The fat lady hasn't sung yet, but she's out back somewhere, warming up for her aria.
As for the rest of it, I share your nihilism and your fear that language just isn't enough to meet the moment. But I think that part of getting out of this, if it's even possible, and establishing a more just society that isn't hellbent on committing suicide in the most public spectacle conceivable, is understanding how we got here. And while it has been well documented, and honestly doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out, putting it to words, in a way that reaches people, might be a task worth undertaking. If any new direction is going to have a lasting impact, then it needs to be borne of acknowledgement and accountability for everything that preceded.
"The Republicans are taking out their decades-long resentment at the fact that they are incapable of understanding either academia or the scientific method by attempting to destroy both the American university system and the entire American scientific research establishment."
Take this, for example. It's true. Completely true. But only for the Tea Party Bobert/Taylor Greene/Tuberville crowd. The establishment Republicans, the ones that have been advocating for decades for the dismantling of the regulatory state, and demonizing education as condescending and elitist, are all highly educated. Most of them went to Ivy League schools, and they sure as hell send their kids there. They're not so much incapable of understanding academia and the scientific method as they view them as inconvenient to the extreme concentration of capital. We're just living through the lasting consequences of their decades-long political project. I think acknowledging that, understanding that and taking accountability for it (individually and as a society) is the only way out.
This probably isn't something you want to focus on, but I guess I'm oh so tentatively offering that there may yet be a place for language, even here.
I might pick a bone about the degree to which the establishment Republicans understand academia - the language is a bit tricky here, but I really do think that they refuse to accept that the academic mission is about pushing towards new boundaries of knowledge and that somewhere deep in their hearts, even the smartest of them think that academics should basically study the "classics" (basically the bible and the Chicago school of economics) and ignore the rest - but beneath that, I think you're right.
The primacy of capital in our lives and in our (their) ideology is absolutely the main thing driving the problems around us - social, ecological, political, and spiritual - and also the god those folks worship.
I think that the difficulty for me is that I'm caught between the articulation of that problem and a real hopelessness about a solution. Could a true socialist society exist at scale? I just don't know. Maybe a northern European situation is the best I can see happening? Down beneath this somewhere, as well, is the fact that I'm such a goddamn nonconformist that there's something in me (this is my old school American side) that rebels at the enforcement that might be necessary to make a really just society work. I'm losing the thread here; I guess I just circle around to the notion that I think Marxist analysis is so devastatingly accurate, but the lack of a solution that I find both convincing and appealing leaves me in despair.
They certainly don't view academia as inherently valuable, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that they do believe in science (as a consequence if not as a process). These people all know climate change is real. DeSantis spent hundreds of millions in flood protection and sea rise mitigation projects in wealthy, tourist-friendly coastal areas of Florida. They know that vaccines save lives. Josh Hawley was vaccinated against Covid-19 and boosted, even as he was questioning their safety for political gain. They know guns kill people. George Abbott bans guns during his public appearances, even as he has expanded gun rights in Texas, to the degree that people can own and carry, open or concealed, without a license, in all public spaces. They know the child tax credit was a huge success. JD Vance even proposed increasing the tax credit while he was campaigning, but he has voted against any initiative to make it permanent. These guys went to Harvard, Yale and Vanderbilt. They know full well the consequences of their actions, but to them those consequences are secondary to ensuring an environment that guarantees extreme inequality in order to maximize wealth concentration. Better for millions of people to starve than for one billionaire to become a multimillionaire.
As far as your nihilism goes, I share it. I do. But even I think there are things to draw strength from, if one is prone to that sort of thing. Like the amount of forceful protest this administration has been met with. By the numbers it dwarfs anything that happened during the civil rights era. There have been anarchist projects throughout history that have been more or less successful (Cataluña, Aragon and other cities during the Spanish Civil War). And as you said, the Nordic model is pretty much the closest you can come to making capitalism and democracy compatible. It's a dark fucking moment we are in, and it will get worse before it gets better (if it even gets better), but I suspect that the only thing we can do is fight the battles in front of us, one at a time, while keeping an eye on an end-goal that we may never reach, but have to keep pushing toward nonetheless.
Agreed all around. I think there's an argument to be made that whatever nihilism I tend towards (which is also connected to depressive episodes, and so usually tends to be relatively short term) is dwarfed by the nihilism of the Republicans. And conservatives in general, because a lot of this is just the fruit of the insane arguments they've been making for the past forty years. The environment, the guns, the vaccine stuff - there's a weird sort of death wish to it that is just truly bizarre. Freud's idea of the death drive, as I remember, has something to do with a desire to return to a state of inactivity, equilibrium, like a release of all the agitations of life that one can't put up with or find ways to put up with. I wonder sometimes if this is what's going on with them - there is some kind of internal psychic fracturing - on both the individual and social/political level - between what they know to be true and what they say/want/wish to be true, ie. "I know that the earth is warming, but I also want so deeply to believe that capitalist energy and industry can never be wrong and can save us from everything" or "I know that people of color are no different from me, but I just can't get over the fact that they look so different and their cultures are so alien that there must be something wrong with them" that they are driven to a kind of nihilistic fuck it all destruction because they can't reconcile this fracturing. But then, even as I articulate it, I think that Occam's Razor probably suggests that you're right and that really they just love rich people and the idea of them and hate poor people and the idea of them.
On a good note, we went to the protests yesterday, and they were super chill (nothing like a bunch of laid-back California kids serving in the national guard looking kind of bemused/.befuddled as parade-goers handed them water bottles and dapped them up as we passed) and I got the feeling I get every time I go to a demonstration, which is that there are a ton of people out there who have their hearts and minds in the right place. Seeing so many of them assembled in that way (especially in light of the fact that Trump's parade was such a silly dud (corporate fucking sponsors - my god, in Trump's America we can't even afford our own goddamn military propaganda)) did give me hope that there is more space between us and the takeover than I've feared.
For what it's worth, you described Thanatos (the death instinct) pretty much to a T and I do think it applies to some of what the right wingers do (their obsession with order at gunpoint is nothing if not an attempt to instill a form of lifelessness). But more broadly speaking, I think it really IS as simple as being completely beholden to capital + xenophobia, racism and misogyny.
I'm glad the protests went well in LA. My very best friend, who I worry about constantly, told me the same thing. He said the only thing he had to compare it to was the George Floyd protests but that this was significantly larger.
And holy shit, you have no idea how much I laughed at the corporate sponsors thing. I don't think even Godard and Mike Judge combined couldn't have come up with something like that. You could write so many fucking essays just on that alone.
I wish I had something more positive to offer, but I've got nothing. This is where we're at. I'm glad you brought up climate change because what little discussion about it there was in the US has all but disappeared. Meanwhile we've crossed every single climate threshold completely unabated and are on the brink of an extinction level event (with a whimper, not a bang, but an ELE nonetheless). The fat lady hasn't sung yet, but she's out back somewhere, warming up for her aria.
As for the rest of it, I share your nihilism and your fear that language just isn't enough to meet the moment. But I think that part of getting out of this, if it's even possible, and establishing a more just society that isn't hellbent on committing suicide in the most public spectacle conceivable, is understanding how we got here. And while it has been well documented, and honestly doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out, putting it to words, in a way that reaches people, might be a task worth undertaking. If any new direction is going to have a lasting impact, then it needs to be borne of acknowledgement and accountability for everything that preceded.
"The Republicans are taking out their decades-long resentment at the fact that they are incapable of understanding either academia or the scientific method by attempting to destroy both the American university system and the entire American scientific research establishment."
Take this, for example. It's true. Completely true. But only for the Tea Party Bobert/Taylor Greene/Tuberville crowd. The establishment Republicans, the ones that have been advocating for decades for the dismantling of the regulatory state, and demonizing education as condescending and elitist, are all highly educated. Most of them went to Ivy League schools, and they sure as hell send their kids there. They're not so much incapable of understanding academia and the scientific method as they view them as inconvenient to the extreme concentration of capital. We're just living through the lasting consequences of their decades-long political project. I think acknowledging that, understanding that and taking accountability for it (individually and as a society) is the only way out.
This probably isn't something you want to focus on, but I guess I'm oh so tentatively offering that there may yet be a place for language, even here.
I think this is all dead on.
I might pick a bone about the degree to which the establishment Republicans understand academia - the language is a bit tricky here, but I really do think that they refuse to accept that the academic mission is about pushing towards new boundaries of knowledge and that somewhere deep in their hearts, even the smartest of them think that academics should basically study the "classics" (basically the bible and the Chicago school of economics) and ignore the rest - but beneath that, I think you're right.
The primacy of capital in our lives and in our (their) ideology is absolutely the main thing driving the problems around us - social, ecological, political, and spiritual - and also the god those folks worship.
I think that the difficulty for me is that I'm caught between the articulation of that problem and a real hopelessness about a solution. Could a true socialist society exist at scale? I just don't know. Maybe a northern European situation is the best I can see happening? Down beneath this somewhere, as well, is the fact that I'm such a goddamn nonconformist that there's something in me (this is my old school American side) that rebels at the enforcement that might be necessary to make a really just society work. I'm losing the thread here; I guess I just circle around to the notion that I think Marxist analysis is so devastatingly accurate, but the lack of a solution that I find both convincing and appealing leaves me in despair.
They certainly don't view academia as inherently valuable, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that they do believe in science (as a consequence if not as a process). These people all know climate change is real. DeSantis spent hundreds of millions in flood protection and sea rise mitigation projects in wealthy, tourist-friendly coastal areas of Florida. They know that vaccines save lives. Josh Hawley was vaccinated against Covid-19 and boosted, even as he was questioning their safety for political gain. They know guns kill people. George Abbott bans guns during his public appearances, even as he has expanded gun rights in Texas, to the degree that people can own and carry, open or concealed, without a license, in all public spaces. They know the child tax credit was a huge success. JD Vance even proposed increasing the tax credit while he was campaigning, but he has voted against any initiative to make it permanent. These guys went to Harvard, Yale and Vanderbilt. They know full well the consequences of their actions, but to them those consequences are secondary to ensuring an environment that guarantees extreme inequality in order to maximize wealth concentration. Better for millions of people to starve than for one billionaire to become a multimillionaire.
As far as your nihilism goes, I share it. I do. But even I think there are things to draw strength from, if one is prone to that sort of thing. Like the amount of forceful protest this administration has been met with. By the numbers it dwarfs anything that happened during the civil rights era. There have been anarchist projects throughout history that have been more or less successful (Cataluña, Aragon and other cities during the Spanish Civil War). And as you said, the Nordic model is pretty much the closest you can come to making capitalism and democracy compatible. It's a dark fucking moment we are in, and it will get worse before it gets better (if it even gets better), but I suspect that the only thing we can do is fight the battles in front of us, one at a time, while keeping an eye on an end-goal that we may never reach, but have to keep pushing toward nonetheless.
Agreed all around. I think there's an argument to be made that whatever nihilism I tend towards (which is also connected to depressive episodes, and so usually tends to be relatively short term) is dwarfed by the nihilism of the Republicans. And conservatives in general, because a lot of this is just the fruit of the insane arguments they've been making for the past forty years. The environment, the guns, the vaccine stuff - there's a weird sort of death wish to it that is just truly bizarre. Freud's idea of the death drive, as I remember, has something to do with a desire to return to a state of inactivity, equilibrium, like a release of all the agitations of life that one can't put up with or find ways to put up with. I wonder sometimes if this is what's going on with them - there is some kind of internal psychic fracturing - on both the individual and social/political level - between what they know to be true and what they say/want/wish to be true, ie. "I know that the earth is warming, but I also want so deeply to believe that capitalist energy and industry can never be wrong and can save us from everything" or "I know that people of color are no different from me, but I just can't get over the fact that they look so different and their cultures are so alien that there must be something wrong with them" that they are driven to a kind of nihilistic fuck it all destruction because they can't reconcile this fracturing. But then, even as I articulate it, I think that Occam's Razor probably suggests that you're right and that really they just love rich people and the idea of them and hate poor people and the idea of them.
On a good note, we went to the protests yesterday, and they were super chill (nothing like a bunch of laid-back California kids serving in the national guard looking kind of bemused/.befuddled as parade-goers handed them water bottles and dapped them up as we passed) and I got the feeling I get every time I go to a demonstration, which is that there are a ton of people out there who have their hearts and minds in the right place. Seeing so many of them assembled in that way (especially in light of the fact that Trump's parade was such a silly dud (corporate fucking sponsors - my god, in Trump's America we can't even afford our own goddamn military propaganda)) did give me hope that there is more space between us and the takeover than I've feared.
For what it's worth, you described Thanatos (the death instinct) pretty much to a T and I do think it applies to some of what the right wingers do (their obsession with order at gunpoint is nothing if not an attempt to instill a form of lifelessness). But more broadly speaking, I think it really IS as simple as being completely beholden to capital + xenophobia, racism and misogyny.
I'm glad the protests went well in LA. My very best friend, who I worry about constantly, told me the same thing. He said the only thing he had to compare it to was the George Floyd protests but that this was significantly larger.
And holy shit, you have no idea how much I laughed at the corporate sponsors thing. I don't think even Godard and Mike Judge combined couldn't have come up with something like that. You could write so many fucking essays just on that alone.
I have been trying to post a long response. I can't get it right. Shit is too fucked. So this...
A grizzly scene on my electron beam told a story about human rights
So all the king's horses and all the king's men had a riot for two days and nights
Well, city exploded, but the gates wouldn't open, so the company asked him to quit
Now everybody's equal
Just don't measure it
Well, Hanson did it to Hester
And Mark David did it to John
And maybe Jack did it to Marilyn
But he did it to South Vietnam
For beauty and glory
For money, love, and country
Now everybody's doin' it
Don't do that to me
A bitter debate and a feminine fate lie in tandem like two precious babes
While the former gets warmer, it's the latter that matters
Except on the nation's airwaves
And custodians of public opinion state fact after vainly discussing her rights
Lay hands off her body
It's not your fuckin' life
Now I don't know what stopped Jesus Christ
From turning every hungry stone into bread
And I don't remember hearin' how Moses reacted when the innocent first born sons lay dead
Well, I guess God was a lot more demonstrative back when he flamboyantly parted the sea
Now everybody's prayin'
Don't pray on me
Said, everybody prayin'
Don't pray on me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZw8zmGanUk
Yes. This is the stuff to turn to, my friend.
...For I can't see
A reason for the suffering and this long misery
What if every living soul could be upright and strong?
Well, then I do imagine
There will be sorrow -
Yeah, there will be sorrow -
There will be sorrow...no more.
https://youtu.be/r7Hb4bxF12E?si=XTMKqohxcCtFruBq
You can get leftist/anti-Israel rantings anywhere. Time to unfollow.
Thanks for your insightful comment!