Re: <nettime> Can the Left Meme?

["André Rebentisch" <tabesin@gmail.com>]

Am 15.06.2017 um 12:05 schrieb "Prof. Dr. Tilman Baumgärtel"@mx.kein.org:

> I would argue that this type of activity has been highjacked by the
> alt-right in a similar fashion as concepts of "Gegenöffentlichkeit",
> alternative media etc. I don´t think that there is anything intrinsic
> right-wing about memes. It is just that the alt-right-trolls - because
> of their nihilism/cynicism - can create memes that are atrocious
> enough to stand out even within the current race to the bottom on the
> 4chan-segment of the internet and elsewhere.

As a thought experiment: The concept of a bipartisan political landscape
is, I would say a fairly recent Western conception to sort political
complexity and it served us well.

Yet, many political conflicts in our world do not fit into this
simplified bipartisan model.

Imagine we just assume for the sake of it that Trump was "left wing" and
then redefine progressiveness. How would we even falsify that the
"alt-right" is not left?

Our conception of the left is shaped by a series of established
positions, modes of operations, historical anchors, a certain humanism
etc. and an origin, an evolution of positions from a left wing branded
discourse.

>From a European perspective it is not too difficult to make up the
narrative that the Democrats are right wing and the republican party
does not even fit in our landscape as Timothy Ash once convincingly
pointed out when he described euroconservatism as old chaps who go hunting.


Am 15.06.2017 um 23:16 schrieb t byfield:

> But that content is
> arbitrary: there's nothing intrinsically sinister or violent about Pepe
> the Frog or any other right-wing -eme, visual or verbal. On the
> contrary, the right's approach is precisely to assign esoteric and even
> occult meanings to phrases, punctuation ("((()))"), images, rhetorical
> forms, gestures, anything. To the extent that "memeing" means anything,
> most of its meaning boils down to that process.

Still you need an observer or a third party value position. The whole
process cannot be imagined enemy-free. Traditional policy agendas could.
What is the "positive" agenda that emerges from this discourse? What do
they stand "for"? Difficult.

--- A

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