As the rise of populism demonstrates, the opium of the people is also "the people" itself, the fuzzy populist dream destined to obfuscate our own antagonisms.
Trump isn't the cause of anything - if he wasn't in his place, someone else would be there performing the same role. The escape from the spiral that we are all in together is not going to be the elimination of one man or another. In an atomized world all we can do is slowly build small real communities, stop allowing ourselves to be pulled away from them for work or otherwise, and live real lives with each other. Maybe in 100 years things will be different then. In the short term, this is what we have and what we get.
Agree about the need to build real communities and that all problems will be not be solved simply by stopping Trump. However, I do believe that Trump is a cause (as well as an effect) of American atomisation. The other people that realistically would have been leading the American right if he was not there (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio etc.) would have of course furthered alienation and atomisation through their right-wing policy, but there is undoubtedly a uniqueness to Trump in his willingness to embrace cult of personality and authoritarianism. Atomisation would have been there if Trump never existed, and will still be here once he is gone, but his transformation of effectively a third of the United States population into a personality cult has furthered the decline of American social lives.
There are literally a dozen Trumps across the globe - in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Argentina, El Salvador, Germany and more. He is not unique or some singular person in world history. Populism hasn’t suddenly arrived in a vacuum - it has been fueled by a political class that no longer reflects the values and needs of the people they serve. While populist leaders in each country are unique, the response from the political class has been the same - portray the populist as some authoritarian figure who will destroy democracy.
There is always the gross, dangerous fiction that “the people” know best about governing themselves. The so-called (another fictional group) “average American” cares little for anything beyond keeping up materially with whoever he/she/it sees at the supermarket or retail store. The prize consumer of capitalism cannot wait to peddle his/her/its behind. I know this tome sounds elitist, but there seems to be no attempt to study whatever “wisdom” that has been handed down to us through the ages. What particularly galls me (as a former literature teacher) is the progressive push to limit the exchange of ideas through the stranglehold monopoly on the public education system. And as there is in everything else: there’s just to much tax/public money out there for the taking. Kleptomania rules. We seem unable to identify the worst of them and continue to elect them to office and appoint them to administrative positions. And now it’s dangerous to speak up if you still need a job. Sad. God help Western Civilization as long as it can last.
I’ll say this. The political and technocratic class today has adopted a basket of luxury beliefs, like net zero, open borders and defund the police, that an illiterate, junior high student can clearly see are nonsense. Some of the worst ideas in modern history have been born from the educated elite. They exist in an insulated echo chamber where batshit crazy ideas are never challenged.
Net zero is a necessity unless you want the mass starvation, disease and suffering that will result from climate change.
Also, some of the best ideas of history have also come from the educated elite. Democracy was a crazy idea. Are you're proposing to let the village drunk have as much of a say as the village doctor on how the government should be run? and you want women to vote too? MADNESS!
Net zero is a completely delusional, unserious policy to tackle a significant issue, albeit one that is not an existential threat to humanity.
If you were to propose we power the economy with nuclear energy, I would certainly support that. However, that’s not happening. The hysterical climate change alarmists instead are fixated on wind and solar.
There is not a single electrical grid anywhere in the world powered by wind and solar. After 35 years of hysterical climate change alarmism, and trillions in govt funding, there is not a single grid powered by wind and solar. Fossil fuels still account for 80% of the energy mix, just like they did 20 years ago.
Why would that be? Because it doesn’t work. In fact, the more wind and solar feeding into the electric grid, the more expensive energy becomes. That’s why countries like Britain, and now even Germany, are deindustrializing. Their energy costs are twice as expensive as North America and five times as expensive as China. Industry will simply walk away. Cheap, reliable energy is like food and water - without it you suffer poverty and misery.
To top it off, even if you believe the delusion that you can power an economy with wind and solar, China and India do not. China is building two coal power plants a week. India is not far behind. Net zero is a luxury belief that will cripple the working and middle classes.
You’re right about one thing - some of the best ideas come the educated elite. However, some of the worst ideas come from the educated elite as well - Nazism and Arianism, Lysenkoism, eugenics - just to name a few. I don’t have an issue with the educated elite. In fact, every society has and needs an elite class to lead it. We just happen to be living in a time and place where the educated elite is not fit for purpose, where Richard Dawkins gets booted from Facebook for wrong speak.
Absolutely, I fundamentally agree with you that Trump did not just pop out of nowhere and the neoliberal political class of the United States is to blame for his rise. But, I don't think there should be a binary between "Trump is a cause of the material and social decline of the United States" and "Trump's personality and willingness to disregard democratic institutions has consequences that likely would not have occured if he was not a politcal actor."
Bit of a side-note that does not explain the entire story but I believe something that seperates Trump in terms of extremity from his contempories such as Meloni, Le Pen or Wilders is that he does not operate in a multi-party parliament where the far-right acts as there own political bloc, he effectively took over an entire party in a two-party system in a top-down fashion over the course of 8 years. This (as well as the obvious far-right predisposition to strongmen) leads to a lot more personalistic form of politics that Trump represents. There is even a whole theory of the case here in the history of the American far-right intellectual sphere, there has been talk about the need for an "American Ceasar" that will shortcut the media elites and connect directly to the will of the people for a long time.
I’ll just say this. Trump didn’t take over the Republican Party in a top-down fashion. He was opposed every step of the way by the donor class and the neo-liberal wing of the party. He won the nomination in 2015 in a democratic process that was very much opposed by the party elite. His first term was marked by opposition from not only the Dems, but also from within his own party. I’m sure there are some differences that do make Trump unique from other populists, but this can be said for all these populist leaders. They all operate in unique circumstances of their own country and political environment.
Yes, that is correct, Trump came to power in the GOP through the democratic primary process (Should have added that for context, my bad). By top-down I simply meant that the process of the GOP becoming the party that it is today, effectively the Trump party, started with the electing of the leader and his mode of politics trickling down from there, as opposed to other party transformations in American history that came over a longer period of time and occured in a more grassroots fashion (The Democrats becoming the civil rights party starting in the 30s and ending in the 60s for example).
If there is anything resembling it, it would probably be the neoliberal-isation of the Democratic party, which largely happened because the party's politicians increasing willingness to buddy up to capital owners and financial elites during the Carter era without much input of the party base.
I get what you’re saying and I agree in the sense that the GOP was kind of hijacked by Trump and transformed into his likeness. It is nothing like the party of 2012. On the other hand, his movement is grassroots, just like any other populist movement. And with the election of JD Vance, this transformation could move on after he is gone. Thanks for the insights. I think it was valuable.
I wonder to what extent this is all late-empire kind of talk. Pretty sure that 85 % of the world doesn't have this feeling - they've got better things to do. I don't know whether they're happier, but they're not navel-gazing and daydreaming about doom.
Is this a joke? Thomas Frank is correct in saying populism has not existed in American politics since the progressive movement over a century ago. It does not exist today.
When Trump was elected, the Republicans controlled all three branches of government. They did what they always do -- tax cuts, deregulation, the Israel lobby, etc. Covid was revelatory in that the GOP, in a state of emergency, could wield the state to do whatever it wanted, and it helplessly reverted to trad, lolbert, and conspiracy nonsense. Like an episode of Scooby Doo, we pulled off the rubber Hitler mask and found Ronald Reagan underneath. This was true not only of the Republican elites but of the plebs, including the most extreme LARPers of the supposed "alternative" right. All of these people are sheep in wolves' clothing.
What's actually going on here -- mass immiseration was caused in industrial regions when Clinton and Blair converted labor parties into tech/finance parties. Such careerists don't have the stones to stand up to the donors, as the Gaza genocide demonstrates, so they make up increasingly extravagant Boomer fantasies about an impending fascist takeover to keep people motivated. The entire spectacle is a clown show, especially since in America, there is no nationalist European right or socialist European left, only shades of liberalism.
"Like an episode of Scooby Doo, we pulled off the rubber Hitler mask and found Ronald Reagan underneath. This was true not only of the Republican elites but of the plebs, including the most extreme LARPers of the supposed "alternative" right."
If you say the same thing about the Democrats and supposed "liberals," we'll be in complete agreement. They all dance to the same masters.
Žižek, a Boomer, likely grew up on Boomervision. As is well known, he is something of a postmodern Marxist who likes to find apparent cultural contradictions that mystify material conflicts. This method is outdated because inequality has reached a point where power does not hide itself but makes itself known on purpose. We live in the age of the flex.
Take a moment to consider the actions of Reid Hoffmann, a tech finance billionaire who recently donated 7 million dollars to the Harris campaign. He explicitly stated immediately after the fact that he wants Lina Khan removed from the FTC. There is no subterfuge, no conspiracy, no ambiguity, no cream with a cherry on top. It is the same spirit of a metal band showing contempt for the audience, or a multinational corporation marking its territory by building a monstrosity that jars with the aesthetics of its surroundings. Or Putin humiliating Tucker Carlson by murdering Navalny immediately after Carlson praised autocrats on the grounds that they have the leeway to make unsavory decisions democracies do not allow. It is like the Borg telling you that resistance is futile.
Because of Bill Clinton, we may be on an irreversible path toward disintegration and oblivion -- a techno-feudal future -- just as Blair sealed the fate of the UK. I say this because the GOP has been helping the rich and powerful become more rich and powerful while lying to its base about immigration since it nominated a corporate lawyer for president, Abraham Lincoln.
Populism, as we learned from the progressive era, is a solution since people-power is one way to fight back against centralizing, autocratic economic tendencies. But as long as today's left remains anti-populist and uses "populist" as a word of derision, we're fucked.
That's like attempting to infer that Marsilio Ficino was not a Platonist from the temporal fact that Plato could not be a Ficinian. Or even better, that Lenin was not a Marxist, because Marx was not a Leninist.
Žižek namedrops Jameson in the video above, so you're not making a good case here. (I assume you understand that Peterson adds little value to a philosophical conversation.)
A better troll post would be: ackchyually, Žižek is a Boomer who, like all Boomers, believes in his freedumbs. That's what he likes most about Marx, not immanence, atheism, revolution, etc., which makes him fundamentally a Hegelian. (I would ackchyually agree with something like this.)
Zizek is more of a hegelian than a marxist. But precisely because of that he is more marxist than marx himself.
"postmodernist" has just become an insult at this point (unless you're a postmodernist). People confuse postmodernism with moral relativism. Peterson's "neo-marxist postmodernists" insult means: "bloody commie who commits mass genocide because he thinks morality is relative and therefore what he does is good because he's an atheist and rejects christian morality". Basically.
Donald Trump, born in 1946, once said, "I like to be unpredictable." The same can be said for all Boomers, so it might be inappropriate to put any label on Žižek. My "postmodern Marxist" designation was supposed to raise an eyebrow. His ludic style looks like postmodernism, but there is more going on than just surface.
As a first approximation, I like to identify postmodernism with the Silent Generation. The normality and affluence of the post-war period, dissonantly following an era where entire nations were organized as giant military bases for total war, seared a metaphysical suspicion into their brains that nothing is as it seems. Revolutions in communications and information technology added to the sense of overload—knowledge had been somehow externalized, which led to all sorts of questions about its selection, storage, paradigms, power, narratives, etc.
So, as Jameson hinted, while modernism temporalizes, postmodernism spatializes. And this isn't just the French post-structuralists, who Peterson wrongly suggested were Marxists. (They're Nietzscheans. Žižek was very patient and polite.) In analytic philosophy, we could consider Quine's program to naturalize epistemology "postmodern," which was taken up by Rorty, Dretske, Stich, Goldman, Churchland, and others. Or we can look at conservative thinking from the same era. Bloom, Sowell, Huntington, Stove, Cowling, and other men of that generation had a sense that knowledge was fragmented, that politics does not run on reason, that interpretation, pluralism, and relativity are ineliminable aspects of life, that it is better to have questions for answers rather than answers for questions, and that grand politics has totalitarian costs not worth paying.
Peterson is promoted by money, way beyond his very limited intellectual range, to put a white face on the very kosher Intellectual Dork Web. Deep down, he knows he's a fraud. He sternly lectures others about genocide, moral relativism, etc. At the same time, Israel is involved in mass murder, mass graves, systematic child executions, deliberate murder of journalists and aid workers, and running torture facilities, and callously celebrates this openly in their government, media, and military. Peterson is cynically taking money, pretending to be someone he is not, which is why he takes the benzos. Zero integrity.
Yes, we should all fear a Trump return because obviously the alternative is a bazillion times better. Just look at how good the last three years have been. I'm so afraid Trump will get re-elected and impose draconian policies that will lower fuel prices, lower taxes, eliminate dumbass regulations, and prevent transgenders from joining the military so that I can work extra to pay for their hormone pills and sex change operations.
Hopefully Kamala can successfully sidestep the Democratic process and usher in a new age Marxist hell scape and get rid of this awful capitalism that lets people freely exchange goods and services.
Why do Trump supporters always expect that those in oppositition to Trump automatically believe that Harris (or any Democratic politician) would be a better alternative? Is this some sort of coping mechaninism? One can be in opposition to both Trump and Harris and the systems that produced them, it is not rocket science.
And the rest of the comment is just slop. What "dumbass regulations" are you even referring to? "Transgenders"? Yikes. Thinking that you will have to work extra to pay for their hormone pills? Funny, but also, double yikes. That's not how transgender healthcare works lol.
Last but not least, what policies would Trump enact that would lower fuel prices? And why would you even want that in the first place, you literally support the free echange of goods and services, or did you think that a price wasn't included in that exhange? You claim to support the free market and capitalism, but then complain when the prices literally reflect market dynamics.
Lmao, this reminds me of the quote: "You're not getting "robbed" at the pump. You're paying fair market price for a commodity. If you love Capitalism so much then stfu"
The way I see it, voting Trump is a gamble. It will stop WW3 and give Ukraine to Putin. Then its 4 years of Putin re-arming in preparation to take the Baltic states. BUT WILL PUTIN SURVIVE 4 YEARS? If he does, we have a 100% guaranteed WW3. If he doesn't then a war between China and the USA is more probable, as there is no third power ready to end off the weakened victor and take all the booty. And if nothing happens, all this distraction will have allowed the worst case scenario for climate change.
So basically, Kámala or Trump, capitalism or communism, we're in deep shit. We could be wearing DeSantis' booster booties and our head would still not reach the surface.
I don't care about halos and vales of tears; Jesus take the wheel.
You say, "there is, after all, no global capitalist worldview." Wrong. Have you ever seen a 'Pride" march? They are all the same: the same esthetics of Kitsch, the same global sponsors, starting with the biggest American banks. They have not only a global ideology, they have the same esthetics: from the US, to south America, to Japan to the most remote European town with the kitschy flag flapping in the windows of all the righteous corporations, they have all embraced this ideology of "inclusivity." It can t get more global than that. And speaking of drugs, a recent film presented on the French public channel, ARTE, a film precisely about this ideology, ended with a screen filled with drugs, and a group of Trans people chanting in unison like members of a cult: "Pharma liberation!" That was not meant to be sarcastic. Yes, we are now being liberated by Big Pharma, and the "liberation" is coming from your progressive camarades.
Trump may very well be the opium of the people, but to compare him to (even a very vulgar) Marx simply because he started a campaign on opioids is ... well, not worthy of you. For once, Trump is logical: his politics align here with who he is as a person: he hates drugs and doesn t drink alcohol at all.
When you remind us of the Communists' way of dealing with religion, you claim that they are more subtle (presumaby than Trump or vulgar Marxists) and that they tried to eliminate the social conditions that give birth to the need for relugion. Hmmm... is it because they were so very "subtle" that they tortured and emprisoned thousands of priests, and wrote in the Constitution that "our country is atheist"? That doesn t strike me as wanting to eliiminate the need for religion. Aside from this, wanting to eliminate the need for religion is like wanting to eliminate the desire for Otherness. But don t worry, we are getting there. Techno-]progressives, ie the Transhumanists, are telling us that "God is Technology." So you can sleep in peace.
Fun? It’s not 2016 anymore. He’s a tired and boring old man who keeps replaying his greatest hits over and over to less and less applause. He’s fat Elvis at this point. Mumbling through some incoherent whine fest about how everything is rigged and fake and stolen. Just look how bored his audience was in Atlanta the other day as he whined about empty seats and launched into another boring hate rant about the governor refusing to help him steal the election. He’s sooo boring. I think the polls are showing now just how tired everyone is with his worn-out shtick.
"As the rise of populism demonstrates, the opium of the people is also "the people" itself, the fuzzy populist dream destined to obfuscate our own antagonisms." - yes, populism (and anti-populism imo) *feels* good. It feels great in fact and that's why everyone jumps into the culture war - because populism is fun.
Thank you for this. Trump is definitely an opiate for white American insecurity, whose causes are no less real than the pain that drives many to find solace in painkillers. The side-effects of the “medication” often become as debilitating as the condition they are prescribed for: inflammatory xenophobia, and thinly veiled racism might only further jeopardize the security of white America.
Trump isn't the cause of anything - if he wasn't in his place, someone else would be there performing the same role. The escape from the spiral that we are all in together is not going to be the elimination of one man or another. In an atomized world all we can do is slowly build small real communities, stop allowing ourselves to be pulled away from them for work or otherwise, and live real lives with each other. Maybe in 100 years things will be different then. In the short term, this is what we have and what we get.
Agree about the need to build real communities and that all problems will be not be solved simply by stopping Trump. However, I do believe that Trump is a cause (as well as an effect) of American atomisation. The other people that realistically would have been leading the American right if he was not there (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio etc.) would have of course furthered alienation and atomisation through their right-wing policy, but there is undoubtedly a uniqueness to Trump in his willingness to embrace cult of personality and authoritarianism. Atomisation would have been there if Trump never existed, and will still be here once he is gone, but his transformation of effectively a third of the United States population into a personality cult has furthered the decline of American social lives.
There are literally a dozen Trumps across the globe - in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Argentina, El Salvador, Germany and more. He is not unique or some singular person in world history. Populism hasn’t suddenly arrived in a vacuum - it has been fueled by a political class that no longer reflects the values and needs of the people they serve. While populist leaders in each country are unique, the response from the political class has been the same - portray the populist as some authoritarian figure who will destroy democracy.
There is always the gross, dangerous fiction that “the people” know best about governing themselves. The so-called (another fictional group) “average American” cares little for anything beyond keeping up materially with whoever he/she/it sees at the supermarket or retail store. The prize consumer of capitalism cannot wait to peddle his/her/its behind. I know this tome sounds elitist, but there seems to be no attempt to study whatever “wisdom” that has been handed down to us through the ages. What particularly galls me (as a former literature teacher) is the progressive push to limit the exchange of ideas through the stranglehold monopoly on the public education system. And as there is in everything else: there’s just to much tax/public money out there for the taking. Kleptomania rules. We seem unable to identify the worst of them and continue to elect them to office and appoint them to administrative positions. And now it’s dangerous to speak up if you still need a job. Sad. God help Western Civilization as long as it can last.
I’ll say this. The political and technocratic class today has adopted a basket of luxury beliefs, like net zero, open borders and defund the police, that an illiterate, junior high student can clearly see are nonsense. Some of the worst ideas in modern history have been born from the educated elite. They exist in an insulated echo chamber where batshit crazy ideas are never challenged.
Net zero is a necessity unless you want the mass starvation, disease and suffering that will result from climate change.
Also, some of the best ideas of history have also come from the educated elite. Democracy was a crazy idea. Are you're proposing to let the village drunk have as much of a say as the village doctor on how the government should be run? and you want women to vote too? MADNESS!
Net zero is a completely delusional, unserious policy to tackle a significant issue, albeit one that is not an existential threat to humanity.
If you were to propose we power the economy with nuclear energy, I would certainly support that. However, that’s not happening. The hysterical climate change alarmists instead are fixated on wind and solar.
There is not a single electrical grid anywhere in the world powered by wind and solar. After 35 years of hysterical climate change alarmism, and trillions in govt funding, there is not a single grid powered by wind and solar. Fossil fuels still account for 80% of the energy mix, just like they did 20 years ago.
Why would that be? Because it doesn’t work. In fact, the more wind and solar feeding into the electric grid, the more expensive energy becomes. That’s why countries like Britain, and now even Germany, are deindustrializing. Their energy costs are twice as expensive as North America and five times as expensive as China. Industry will simply walk away. Cheap, reliable energy is like food and water - without it you suffer poverty and misery.
To top it off, even if you believe the delusion that you can power an economy with wind and solar, China and India do not. China is building two coal power plants a week. India is not far behind. Net zero is a luxury belief that will cripple the working and middle classes.
You’re right about one thing - some of the best ideas come the educated elite. However, some of the worst ideas come from the educated elite as well - Nazism and Arianism, Lysenkoism, eugenics - just to name a few. I don’t have an issue with the educated elite. In fact, every society has and needs an elite class to lead it. We just happen to be living in a time and place where the educated elite is not fit for purpose, where Richard Dawkins gets booted from Facebook for wrong speak.
Absolutely, I fundamentally agree with you that Trump did not just pop out of nowhere and the neoliberal political class of the United States is to blame for his rise. But, I don't think there should be a binary between "Trump is a cause of the material and social decline of the United States" and "Trump's personality and willingness to disregard democratic institutions has consequences that likely would not have occured if he was not a politcal actor."
Bit of a side-note that does not explain the entire story but I believe something that seperates Trump in terms of extremity from his contempories such as Meloni, Le Pen or Wilders is that he does not operate in a multi-party parliament where the far-right acts as there own political bloc, he effectively took over an entire party in a two-party system in a top-down fashion over the course of 8 years. This (as well as the obvious far-right predisposition to strongmen) leads to a lot more personalistic form of politics that Trump represents. There is even a whole theory of the case here in the history of the American far-right intellectual sphere, there has been talk about the need for an "American Ceasar" that will shortcut the media elites and connect directly to the will of the people for a long time.
I’ll just say this. Trump didn’t take over the Republican Party in a top-down fashion. He was opposed every step of the way by the donor class and the neo-liberal wing of the party. He won the nomination in 2015 in a democratic process that was very much opposed by the party elite. His first term was marked by opposition from not only the Dems, but also from within his own party. I’m sure there are some differences that do make Trump unique from other populists, but this can be said for all these populist leaders. They all operate in unique circumstances of their own country and political environment.
Yes, that is correct, Trump came to power in the GOP through the democratic primary process (Should have added that for context, my bad). By top-down I simply meant that the process of the GOP becoming the party that it is today, effectively the Trump party, started with the electing of the leader and his mode of politics trickling down from there, as opposed to other party transformations in American history that came over a longer period of time and occured in a more grassroots fashion (The Democrats becoming the civil rights party starting in the 30s and ending in the 60s for example).
If there is anything resembling it, it would probably be the neoliberal-isation of the Democratic party, which largely happened because the party's politicians increasing willingness to buddy up to capital owners and financial elites during the Carter era without much input of the party base.
I get what you’re saying and I agree in the sense that the GOP was kind of hijacked by Trump and transformed into his likeness. It is nothing like the party of 2012. On the other hand, his movement is grassroots, just like any other populist movement. And with the election of JD Vance, this transformation could move on after he is gone. Thanks for the insights. I think it was valuable.
Good point
I wonder to what extent this is all late-empire kind of talk. Pretty sure that 85 % of the world doesn't have this feeling - they've got better things to do. I don't know whether they're happier, but they're not navel-gazing and daydreaming about doom.
I always always thought "great again" meant "here, have another Vicodin, I'll take care of things on tv"
>populism
Is this a joke? Thomas Frank is correct in saying populism has not existed in American politics since the progressive movement over a century ago. It does not exist today.
When Trump was elected, the Republicans controlled all three branches of government. They did what they always do -- tax cuts, deregulation, the Israel lobby, etc. Covid was revelatory in that the GOP, in a state of emergency, could wield the state to do whatever it wanted, and it helplessly reverted to trad, lolbert, and conspiracy nonsense. Like an episode of Scooby Doo, we pulled off the rubber Hitler mask and found Ronald Reagan underneath. This was true not only of the Republican elites but of the plebs, including the most extreme LARPers of the supposed "alternative" right. All of these people are sheep in wolves' clothing.
What's actually going on here -- mass immiseration was caused in industrial regions when Clinton and Blair converted labor parties into tech/finance parties. Such careerists don't have the stones to stand up to the donors, as the Gaza genocide demonstrates, so they make up increasingly extravagant Boomer fantasies about an impending fascist takeover to keep people motivated. The entire spectacle is a clown show, especially since in America, there is no nationalist European right or socialist European left, only shades of liberalism.
"Like an episode of Scooby Doo, we pulled off the rubber Hitler mask and found Ronald Reagan underneath. This was true not only of the Republican elites but of the plebs, including the most extreme LARPers of the supposed "alternative" right."
If you say the same thing about the Democrats and supposed "liberals," we'll be in complete agreement. They all dance to the same masters.
I generally agree.
Žižek, a Boomer, likely grew up on Boomervision. As is well known, he is something of a postmodern Marxist who likes to find apparent cultural contradictions that mystify material conflicts. This method is outdated because inequality has reached a point where power does not hide itself but makes itself known on purpose. We live in the age of the flex.
Take a moment to consider the actions of Reid Hoffmann, a tech finance billionaire who recently donated 7 million dollars to the Harris campaign. He explicitly stated immediately after the fact that he wants Lina Khan removed from the FTC. There is no subterfuge, no conspiracy, no ambiguity, no cream with a cherry on top. It is the same spirit of a metal band showing contempt for the audience, or a multinational corporation marking its territory by building a monstrosity that jars with the aesthetics of its surroundings. Or Putin humiliating Tucker Carlson by murdering Navalny immediately after Carlson praised autocrats on the grounds that they have the leeway to make unsavory decisions democracies do not allow. It is like the Borg telling you that resistance is futile.
Because of Bill Clinton, we may be on an irreversible path toward disintegration and oblivion -- a techno-feudal future -- just as Blair sealed the fate of the UK. I say this because the GOP has been helping the rich and powerful become more rich and powerful while lying to its base about immigration since it nominated a corporate lawyer for president, Abraham Lincoln.
Populism, as we learned from the progressive era, is a solution since people-power is one way to fight back against centralizing, autocratic economic tendencies. But as long as today's left remains anti-populist and uses "populist" as a word of derision, we're fucked.
Marx was not a postmodernist, therefore a Marxist cannot be a postmodernist. If he were, he'd be a postmodernist, not a Marxist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsz6ijXWS3A
That's like attempting to infer that Marsilio Ficino was not a Platonist from the temporal fact that Plato could not be a Ficinian. Or even better, that Lenin was not a Marxist, because Marx was not a Leninist.
Žižek namedrops Jameson in the video above, so you're not making a good case here. (I assume you understand that Peterson adds little value to a philosophical conversation.)
A better troll post would be: ackchyually, Žižek is a Boomer who, like all Boomers, believes in his freedumbs. That's what he likes most about Marx, not immanence, atheism, revolution, etc., which makes him fundamentally a Hegelian. (I would ackchyually agree with something like this.)
Zizek is more of a hegelian than a marxist. But precisely because of that he is more marxist than marx himself.
"postmodernist" has just become an insult at this point (unless you're a postmodernist). People confuse postmodernism with moral relativism. Peterson's "neo-marxist postmodernists" insult means: "bloody commie who commits mass genocide because he thinks morality is relative and therefore what he does is good because he's an atheist and rejects christian morality". Basically.
Donald Trump, born in 1946, once said, "I like to be unpredictable." The same can be said for all Boomers, so it might be inappropriate to put any label on Žižek. My "postmodern Marxist" designation was supposed to raise an eyebrow. His ludic style looks like postmodernism, but there is more going on than just surface.
As a first approximation, I like to identify postmodernism with the Silent Generation. The normality and affluence of the post-war period, dissonantly following an era where entire nations were organized as giant military bases for total war, seared a metaphysical suspicion into their brains that nothing is as it seems. Revolutions in communications and information technology added to the sense of overload—knowledge had been somehow externalized, which led to all sorts of questions about its selection, storage, paradigms, power, narratives, etc.
So, as Jameson hinted, while modernism temporalizes, postmodernism spatializes. And this isn't just the French post-structuralists, who Peterson wrongly suggested were Marxists. (They're Nietzscheans. Žižek was very patient and polite.) In analytic philosophy, we could consider Quine's program to naturalize epistemology "postmodern," which was taken up by Rorty, Dretske, Stich, Goldman, Churchland, and others. Or we can look at conservative thinking from the same era. Bloom, Sowell, Huntington, Stove, Cowling, and other men of that generation had a sense that knowledge was fragmented, that politics does not run on reason, that interpretation, pluralism, and relativity are ineliminable aspects of life, that it is better to have questions for answers rather than answers for questions, and that grand politics has totalitarian costs not worth paying.
Peterson is promoted by money, way beyond his very limited intellectual range, to put a white face on the very kosher Intellectual Dork Web. Deep down, he knows he's a fraud. He sternly lectures others about genocide, moral relativism, etc. At the same time, Israel is involved in mass murder, mass graves, systematic child executions, deliberate murder of journalists and aid workers, and running torture facilities, and callously celebrates this openly in their government, media, and military. Peterson is cynically taking money, pretending to be someone he is not, which is why he takes the benzos. Zero integrity.
Yes, we should all fear a Trump return because obviously the alternative is a bazillion times better. Just look at how good the last three years have been. I'm so afraid Trump will get re-elected and impose draconian policies that will lower fuel prices, lower taxes, eliminate dumbass regulations, and prevent transgenders from joining the military so that I can work extra to pay for their hormone pills and sex change operations.
Hopefully Kamala can successfully sidestep the Democratic process and usher in a new age Marxist hell scape and get rid of this awful capitalism that lets people freely exchange goods and services.
Why do Trump supporters always expect that those in oppositition to Trump automatically believe that Harris (or any Democratic politician) would be a better alternative? Is this some sort of coping mechaninism? One can be in opposition to both Trump and Harris and the systems that produced them, it is not rocket science.
And the rest of the comment is just slop. What "dumbass regulations" are you even referring to? "Transgenders"? Yikes. Thinking that you will have to work extra to pay for their hormone pills? Funny, but also, double yikes. That's not how transgender healthcare works lol.
Last but not least, what policies would Trump enact that would lower fuel prices? And why would you even want that in the first place, you literally support the free echange of goods and services, or did you think that a price wasn't included in that exhange? You claim to support the free market and capitalism, but then complain when the prices literally reflect market dynamics.
Lmao, this reminds me of the quote: "You're not getting "robbed" at the pump. You're paying fair market price for a commodity. If you love Capitalism so much then stfu"
The way I see it, voting Trump is a gamble. It will stop WW3 and give Ukraine to Putin. Then its 4 years of Putin re-arming in preparation to take the Baltic states. BUT WILL PUTIN SURVIVE 4 YEARS? If he does, we have a 100% guaranteed WW3. If he doesn't then a war between China and the USA is more probable, as there is no third power ready to end off the weakened victor and take all the booty. And if nothing happens, all this distraction will have allowed the worst case scenario for climate change.
So basically, Kámala or Trump, capitalism or communism, we're in deep shit. We could be wearing DeSantis' booster booties and our head would still not reach the surface.
I don't care about halos and vales of tears; Jesus take the wheel.
You say, "there is, after all, no global capitalist worldview." Wrong. Have you ever seen a 'Pride" march? They are all the same: the same esthetics of Kitsch, the same global sponsors, starting with the biggest American banks. They have not only a global ideology, they have the same esthetics: from the US, to south America, to Japan to the most remote European town with the kitschy flag flapping in the windows of all the righteous corporations, they have all embraced this ideology of "inclusivity." It can t get more global than that. And speaking of drugs, a recent film presented on the French public channel, ARTE, a film precisely about this ideology, ended with a screen filled with drugs, and a group of Trans people chanting in unison like members of a cult: "Pharma liberation!" That was not meant to be sarcastic. Yes, we are now being liberated by Big Pharma, and the "liberation" is coming from your progressive camarades.
Trump may very well be the opium of the people, but to compare him to (even a very vulgar) Marx simply because he started a campaign on opioids is ... well, not worthy of you. For once, Trump is logical: his politics align here with who he is as a person: he hates drugs and doesn t drink alcohol at all.
When you remind us of the Communists' way of dealing with religion, you claim that they are more subtle (presumaby than Trump or vulgar Marxists) and that they tried to eliminate the social conditions that give birth to the need for relugion. Hmmm... is it because they were so very "subtle" that they tortured and emprisoned thousands of priests, and wrote in the Constitution that "our country is atheist"? That doesn t strike me as wanting to eliiminate the need for religion. Aside from this, wanting to eliminate the need for religion is like wanting to eliminate the desire for Otherness. But don t worry, we are getting there. Techno-]progressives, ie the Transhumanists, are telling us that "God is Technology." So you can sleep in peace.
Great read with an Irish tea this beautiful morning, thank you!
I rather enjoy the opiate that is Trump. He’s just fun.
Fun? It’s not 2016 anymore. He’s a tired and boring old man who keeps replaying his greatest hits over and over to less and less applause. He’s fat Elvis at this point. Mumbling through some incoherent whine fest about how everything is rigged and fake and stolen. Just look how bored his audience was in Atlanta the other day as he whined about empty seats and launched into another boring hate rant about the governor refusing to help him steal the election. He’s sooo boring. I think the polls are showing now just how tired everyone is with his worn-out shtick.
You read the polls? How funny. 😁
Nope. He is just another effect of the same cause.
I enjoyed that that was thought provoking.
"As the rise of populism demonstrates, the opium of the people is also "the people" itself, the fuzzy populist dream destined to obfuscate our own antagonisms." - yes, populism (and anti-populism imo) *feels* good. It feels great in fact and that's why everyone jumps into the culture war - because populism is fun.
Thank you for this. Trump is definitely an opiate for white American insecurity, whose causes are no less real than the pain that drives many to find solace in painkillers. The side-effects of the “medication” often become as debilitating as the condition they are prescribed for: inflammatory xenophobia, and thinly veiled racism might only further jeopardize the security of white America.
Or, "oh great, [not] again."
Are you aware that JD Vance wrote an essay for the Atlantic in 2016 called “Trump is an Opioid for the Masses”?
Isn't the current government a nightmare?
Better populism than Leninism.