<nettime> Grand narratives vs Identitarianism

Yes yes yes, dear Jan Hendrik, this is precisely the way to go! We need to fundamentally reunderstand social relations to then make smithereens of western individualism (Descartes and Kant) to then present the relationalist or network-dynamical model for the 21st century society, for man and machine, for economy and ecology, and the universal rather than the particular condition for being human. This is where the call for a return to the tribe comes in.

I haven't worked with Australian aboriginals but when Jan Söderqvist and I researched for our book "Digital Libido" we traveled to Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Botswana, New Guinea, northern Canada, to interview hundreds of tribal elders and collect the data by which we could make data anthropology out of tribal anthropology. And naturally universal patterns soon began to emerge out of the data. A matriarchy (inner circuit) matching a patriarchy (outer circuit) with clear male, female and androgynous contributive archetypes (forget work, what is deeply human and social is contribution, in whatever shape it comes) making it possible for us to guarantee that all living human beings today have had contributive social archetypes (whether they still will do so remains to be seen once robotization and automatization have played their cards). And not a single trace of individualism anywhere, but tons of personal responsibility (returned with autonomy) following the always returning and all-important rite of passage. Tundra or savannah had no effect, the tribe works the same everywhere we looked. I believe this is a formidable foundation for a thriving eco-socialism. And I certainly want to be part in building it in whatever way I can.

Please note how the rite of passage and the journey from childhood to adulthood is fundamental for any thriving and functioning culture. It is consequently The Left that should embrace and cherish adulthood as ideal. Why our western identitarianism has done so much damage is because like all Rousseauian movements before it, it has celebrated childhood over adulthood, infantilized western society on a massive scale both through consumerism, welfare-state dependency, instagram narcissism, and pure capitalist greed. And you can just check the data coming out of Google for understanding the true tragedy of our times: Each generation only talks to itself, the relationships between the elders and youth have broken down. This is what is historically new and so utterly dangerous with the social media revolution, we have never had a generationalist society before. And besides the ecology this is the most dangerous thing we are playing with in contemporary western society.

So I argue that an Australian aboriginal elderly matriarch really teaches us what our own elders would have taught us, had they still been around or listened to. However if we can manage to create a grand narrative based on our fundamental tribalness, ecological sustainability, equality and respect between tribal members (the only hierarchy we found within tribes is that the older decide over the younger, strictly from a maximized wisdom ideal), then we can focus on the two major challenges that await us: The move from intratribalism to intertribalism (which is going to be incredibly hard, we are essentially born programmed to kill strangers no matter what Derrida and Levinas think) and the move from the human relationality to the human-machine relationality. Tough stuff indeed. But without a new grand narrative (a return to the real rather than the good tribe) we will utterly fail. Postmodernism and identitarianism served their purposes but are of no or little use in this struggle. Class analysis and sociobiology though mean absolutely everything.

Best intentions

Alexander

Den fre 2 nov. 2018 kl 05:40 skrev jan hendrik brueggemeier <[email protected]>:

Dear nettime list -

a little late to the party (and it seems the conversation has already
moved on …) i do like to pose some observations/ questions that this
thread has triggered for me — although i must admit that i have not read
marx (nor rosseau) myself. that’s probably me just being lazy as i did
inherit a copy of “grundrisse” from my dad and i was impressed that he
had sat down and used a ruler to underline important parts throughout
the whole book. Btw jean amery writes about going through the waves not
having had read marx in 1930s and again in 1960s …

a little while ago i helped facilitate a conversation about eco-feminism
from an australian-aborignial and a western perspective between two
philosophers: mary graham, a kombumerri elder from queensland and freya
mathews from victoria. mary made a comment that for her western
philosophy is pretty much the intellect of the arena (and this recent
thread on nettime did bring her point home in a way).

however, how i interpret her observation is that one difference of
aboriginal intellectuality to a western (academic) one is that it stems
from within a community context with very clear responsibilities to kin
and "country" (as in more the bioregion one lives in -- not the nation
state). needless to say that having such "skin in the game" obviously
grounds and helps maturing the conversation culture. and i find myself
engaging less and less with theorists, consultants, spokeshumans etc if
i sense that they do not have much of their own skin in the game. a move
i would not consider as an anti-intellectual ... this obviously does not
help with this email threads' intent to identify what strategy forward
would succeed in capturing the vanguard consciousness necessary for
whatever our planetary future holds for "us" meaning humanity (but from
a left perspective). i did take the point, tough, that theoretic tools
analysing the past / present may not be adequate to guide the way
forward. however, i did wonder in the light of this thread why not more
recent examples of social movements where reviewed in order to
articulate an argument. brian pointed out that marx and engels were
discussing their theories with workers for two years, which is something
i'd might come back to. for instance, my recollection of visiting occupy
in melbourne is that i was struck by the social awkwardness of it and
this is not meant in a judgmental way. i think we deal a lot with
awkwardness in our intimate, personal and social relationships (and i am
sure freud does have a lot to say about this). this may has been
different in zuccotti park. i doubt it, though, and i do think it is
only to increase out of multiple reasons ... in this regard (and given
that "forming tribes" has been mentioned as well) i find the strategies
of aboriginal communities organising themselves, f.ex., around native
title claims (however patronising and piss-weak this australian law
might be -- as in it is mere a recognition without direct rights) more
enlightening.

i guess in a different context that is not un-similar to what bauwens
and bollier mean with scale out (not up), how much this will hold up
when things turn nasty is another question.

given this list's own limitation in regard to its demographic -- and
following marx and engels' example -- i do wonder if one would devise a
global focus group on the emerging (class) consciousness, where would
you go, who would be included and what questions would you ask them?

cheers
jan

PS
if you want to listen to mary and freya's conversation, a recording can
be found here: http://ned.neture.org/ned-conversations

On 31/10/18 11:00 am, David Erixon wrote:
>> On 30 Oct 2018, at 13:44, Ian Alan Paul <[email protected]
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>
>> It's possible to critique biological essentialism in relation to
>> race/sex, while also defending the reality of race/sex in the sense
>> that they are real distinctions/categorizations that have been
>> historically acted upon by the material forces of capital.
>
> Hm.
> “Defending”?!
> Of course we must recognize race (and thus racism; without the anchor
> point of race, there can’t be racism) in order to understand apartheid
> (and other forms of oppression based on the social ghost / misinformed
> social construction of “race”), but that’s rather different from using
> it to build a preferred future. We should know better.
>
> If we want an “a-racial” world (I assume that’s what we want, but I
> could be wrong; lex SA and the politics of ANC) then cementing the
> notion of race hardly does the job. It perpetuates it.
>
> I find the position of using “race” to build a vision of the future
> deeply cynical, manipulative, nostalgic and/or naive. Even racist. Or at
> least, metaphorically, tone deaf. Or do you believe that the difference
> between “races” is greater than “within” race? Then you are factually
> incorrect. And that’s not a humble opinion.
>
> Again, I understand that race is essential for analysis of past
> problems, but I reject it’s essential for building a future vision.
>
> And whether we subscribe to capitalism (as in risk/reward,
> freedom/prison/lack of choice and collective/individual
> intelligence/stupidity; thus over time concentrating power to
> people/class with wealth/timing/luck) or more regulated economic
> frameworks (promoting wealth distribution and other types of balancing
> interventions impacting “quality of life”, equal opportunity, fairness
> and justice), explain to me how the notion of race informs a way
> forward? What do you want to do with your “defending” of race going
> forward? In what way does it inform your vision? And I will not buy a
> lazy “I don’t know; that’s not my job”. You need to be able to take your
> position into reality. Lay it bare.
>
> I get the intersectional analysis, I get the oppressed and oppressor (as
> a way of analyzing history and even contemporary society), but what are
> you proposing? In what way will this analysis help us going forward?
> Just to get concrete.
>
> The best theories are deeply practical. Imho.
>
>> What is being pushed back against is the notion that you can ever
>> understand class absent of an understanding of race and sex.
>
> Of course you can. Just look at cash flow and balance sheet. How much
> profit are you making (or loss) and what is your net asset position?
> Look at it from sperm to worm (ie over a lifetime). Compare. Contrast.
>
> Believe me, I’m a son of parents, both adopted, one racially reassigned
> (my dad was the result of a “white man” raping a 15 yo sami girl;
> consequently forced by state to be put into orphanage and later fostered
> by two “Swedes”); the other “domiciled” (my mum, born into a traveling
> community, reassigned to a farmer family by state; this was Sweden in
> the 30s), I could easily fall into both race and sex analysis (been
> there, done that, got the t-shirt), but reality is, they were REDUCED to
> categories, not liberated from it. What got them into the situation, is
> not the same as what got them out of the situation. What got them out
> were access and opportunities based on socio economic conditions.
>
> Now, you might find that there are high correlation between race and
> social class, but race do not equal class. Neither does sex. And even if
> that WAS the case (which it factually isn’t; and probabilities is not
> valid here, unless you’re a Maoist and ready to sacrifice humanity for
> ideology; you obviously must have skipped the multi variable analysis in
> statistics class) then we should be back at fighting for class. Because
> anything else is a slippery slope to equality meaning we must all BE the
> same (or even worse; the oppressed becomes the oppressor) — which we are
> not. Unless you do believe that we can only be equal if we are the same.
> Or that “difference” somehow merits any type of “special treatment”
> (white OR black, man OR female, etc).
>
> I’m not buying what you’re selling. But I’m open to me misinterpreting
> your ad. The copy could just be too academic for my comprehension. Talk
> to me like a worker / consumer please.
>
> What’s in it for me and my people?
>
> All the best,
> David