Hi. I haven’t posted on here for ages, since I’ve been rather busy with the second year of my degree, and I’ve found that I haven’t really had much to say. Also, I think I used to have a rather naïve position on issues like anti-capitalism and feminism (possibly as a result of reading too much Chomsky), and I’m trying to decide what I actually think at the moment. Anyway, I’ll get on with the post.
“The rhetoric of today’s political leaders serves neither construction nor conservation. Its aim is to dismantle. Dismantle what has been inherited from the past, socially, economically and ethically, and, in particular, all the associations, regulations and mechanisms expressing solidarity.â€?
I’ve just been reading John Berger’s article on the protests in France (he is quoted above – I got the link from Lenin’s tomb). In it, he writes about the rhetoric used by politicians to hide the “process of dismantling, � to make it look as if it were natural and inevitable. However, I think that this article makes it seem as though the dismantling of public services is inevitable. He seems to mostly express nostalgia for “what has been inherited from the past, socially, economically and ethically�.
I really like the article about the protests on the K-punk blog. K-punk says that “if anti-capitalism is equated with ‘immobilization’, not only will it prove ineffective, it will actually serve as part of the ideological framework of Capitalism.� This is because it confirms that “capital owns the future,� and the only option for us is to take a stance that we know will be defeated.
Mostly, when I talk to friends about neo-liberalism, they agree that it’s bad, but they say that they think it is inevitable. None of my friends want job insecurity and terrible student loan debts, but they think that it’s going to happen anyway so they may as well get on with it, and make the best of it (k-punk writes about how arguments in favour of neo-liberal reforms appeal to reality, rather than to improvement in the post “Capitalist Realist Straw Women�. Unfortunately I can’t find a way to link directly to it). They really have no reason to protest against it, while we take this “romantic but inevitably defeated Canute-like stance�. I just don’t really know how, practically, we can protest against these reforms, without being nostalgic.
Recently there was a library occupation at Sussex, just after the lecturer’s strike, in protest against the neo-liberal reforms at Sussex (I couldn’t get to it, unfortunately). The demands do seem to have been mostly defensive, for example, “opposition to the introduction of top-up fees.� I’m not sure what the solution is, possibly to oppose top-up fees, and to try to take over the university! I think I remember Tim suggesting something like this ages ago.
Also, I’m not sure why there were yoga classes at the library occupation. Hippies are damn annoying! Now I really should get back to work (I have to read about Heidigger and moral realism today.)
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Nice post. I wonder if there’s a necessary connection between defensiveness and nostalgia? I guess capitalist realism has such a hold on the present, we need to construe revolutionary politics in terms of a different time, either the past or the future. But there are non-nostalgic ways of appealing to the past, I think.
Comment by tim @ 4/8/2006 7:47 am
Good to have you back, Rachel!
Comment by Alistair @ 4/10/2006 7:19 am
Yes; I’ve got a big post coming up on ‘Reflexive Impotence’ which should take up some of these issues…
Comment by mark k-p @ 4/10/2006 8:18 am