Sam Weinberg via nettime-l on Thu, 20 Feb 2025 03:10:22 +0100 (CET)


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: <nettime> Europe and the MAGA mind virus


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE UNSUBSCRIBE ME. I TRIED MULTIPLE TIMES AND YET I'M
STILL GETTING EMAILS.

On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 7:57 PM Louis Rawlins via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org> wrote:

> Hey Brian and Christian. I'm responding without reading the full thread,
> given that I feel like I understand the contours of this ongoing dialogue.
> Feel free to correct my flow.
>
> Brian, you mentioned recently the idea of eldership and starting to feel
> into that role. This feels to me an important point. One way the concept of
> eldership has been presented to me has been, "How do youth today know you
> are a person they can come to? How would they know?"
>
> Instead of "Life Under Capitalism" maybe we could try something like
> "Poorly-Functioning Socialism" or play the game of "Notice Communistic
> Behaviors" which is the vibe I got from David Graeber in the early chapters
> of *Debt: The First 5,000 Years.*
>
> Somebody on nettime recently noted too, that generational divides are
> somewhat artificial and driven by the idea of demographics, itself a
> statistical / eugenics project. So it makes me wonder if what you're
> sensing as a generational regret is itself part of the problem. Put another
> way, "Life Under Capitalism" thrives on environments of fear,
> disappointment and jealousy. It's how you sell things. Robert
> Cialdini wrote *Influence* about just that. It's not normally a book I
> reference, but it's been nagging me that the more-privileged coworker at
> the last startup where I worked was reading it. Something about my
> coworker's "class advantage" and the fact that they still needing to do
> individual learning struck me as strange.
>
> All to say, there feels like there is some framing yet-to-come about world
> events. I'm less savvy about Europe, but I do know that a few of my
> community elders here in San Francisco were on my bus commute home from
> work. They were getting ready to protest in front of the Tesla dealership.
> I didn't catch one of the protest signs they were carrying, but I did
> notice the, "ELON MUSK IS A NAZI" written in red and blue marker on
> gatorboard. I can only imagine the impact for $TSLA tomorrow (up 6.45
> points today).
>
> Peace,  Louis
>
> On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 3:00 AM <nettime-l-request@lists.nettime.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Send nettime-l mailing list submissions to
> >         nettime-l@lists.nettime.org
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >         https://lists.servus.at/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> >         nettime-l-request@lists.nettime.org
> >
> > You can reach the person managing the list at
> >         nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of nettime-l digest..."
> >
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. Re: Europe and the MAGA mind virus (Christian Swertz)
> >    2. Re: Europe and the MAGA mind virus (Brian Holmes)
> >
> >
> [snip]
>
>
> > Thanks for asking Christian. I did not mean to impugn all anarchists nor
> > all of anarchism - I too am a fan of many authors and projects, not only
> > those whom you mention - but rather I was referring to the way that a lot
> > of people more or less affiliated with anarchism greeted the Internet
> with
> > such enthusiasm. We talked a lot about the rights and dreams of people in
> > the Lacondon jungle (the Zapatistas), and theirs remains a great cause,
> but
> > we failed to see (or make visible to others) the almost inevitable
> > consequences of accelerated commercial and cultural change, namely the
> > present fascist backlash. In that regard we were the useful fools of our
> > time.. We contributed to legitimating globalization under an "alter"
> guise.
> > I basically knew this as it was happening, but I couldn't do anything
> about
> > it.
> >
> > Of course this is not a very hopeful way to look back. It's a kind of
> > generational regret. I regret the way things have turned out. It's not
> > exactly my fault, but as I did participate at my individual scale, I
> still
> > feel that regret, also through empathy with future generations. Maybe
> life
> > under capitalism is like that?
> >
> > best, Brian
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 3:31?AM Christian Swertz <christian@swertz.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Brian,
> > >
> > > thank you for your substantial post. Really an interesting read. I just
> > > did not understand this one:
> > >
> > > owever, there was no audience for it and I soon ceased trying
> > > to make that point (shame on me). The reason why is that the
> > internet-happy
> > > anarchists, with all their open-border idealism, just didn't give a
> damn
> > > about lessons of history. T
> > >
> > >
> > > As far as I know, there is a difference between the freedom of capital
> > and
> > > the freedom of people, there is a difference between competition and
> > > solidarity, and there are some lessons about history that are taken
> into
> > > account in anarchist concepts, for example by Wengrow and Graeber, who
> > > actually argue for something that could be called open-border idealism.
> > But
> > > obviously I missed something. Can you give me a hint?
> > >
> > > I only ask because I fear that hopelessness as a result of the analysis
> > > might have the opposite effect to what is probably intended.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Liebe Gr??e,
> > >
> > > Christian Swertzhttp://www.swertz.at
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Subject: Digest Footer
> >
> > --
> > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> > # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> > # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > End of nettime-l Digest, Vol 20, Issue 19
> > *****************************************
> >
> --
> # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
> # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> # more info: https://www.nettime.org
> # contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org
>
-- 
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: nettime-l-owner@lists.nettime.org