Re: <nettime> Complexity and nostalgia

Wow, nettime’s very own James Damore moment -

And hardly anyone calls him out.

I cannot believe how easily so many people here allowed A.B. to intellectually-click-bait

them into a discussion just because he whispered the magic words „Marx“ and „class“,

And willingly delivered him material to refine his language for his pseudo-philosophical

White male ängst-driven project,

Even after he had already lashed out in a dangerously generalized way against academia,

After he had already generally denounced identity politics as self-pity and whining, after he

Had claimed gender & race as having no social realities, after he had judged the welfare

State as an infantilization of society and, on top of all, had totally ridiculously indulged himself

In a teenage-like invention rage of cock-culture-worshipping neologisms that he obviously enjoys

To decorate his little short-20th-Century binary phantasy land with.

While a few of the answers with serious reactions to the classism question were really a

Pleasure to read and very much worth considering under different premises, I don’t understand

why almost nobody here (except for Alice, Ian, and Florian - thanks for your interventions) did see

The contradiction that the very same people he claims to be wanting to work with in that new class

War he dreams of, get insulted so badly and in a hierarchy-reproducing manner, that a future

Cooperation is being boycotted before it has even started.

Is that really only a sad lack of strategic thinking? Or not rather revealing how inclusive his

New class war phantasy actually is, and whose perspective he expects to be adopted as

Conceptual lead?

There is a big difference between disagreement and lashing out in a way that reveals absolute

Entitlement, and even worse: the assumption to be „safe“ when stating such stuff in a place

Like nettime mailing list.

It’s so tiring to be forced to point out, once more, that entitlement is key in this problematic:

While Alexander and his followers have very well understood that investing into digital literacy

Is an absolute necessity if they want to survive in these times, any knowledge update in relation to

Gender & anti-racism debates is shrugged of as community-specific expertise (and commented

With the reproach of having an only self-healing effect) instead of understood as the fundamental,

Constitutive (not so new) change of perspective, without which no thorough analysis of class

Struggle can withstand.

It was really interesting to read Dan’s report/ analysis of the beginning of ‚identity politics‘ in the US

(In Europe, I assume, this is a slightly different story) and his acknowledgement/ claim that it is his

Generation's own fault not to have passed on the historic context to the next generation.

I would really like to engage in this discussion by asking if it is really about the lack of history in a

Negative sense, or, if the (assumed) lack of history/ continuity might not be _expression_ of a generally

Positive phenomenon: the attitude of a generation being sick of any kind of further waiting and gradual

Development, legitimately bold enough to demand full acceptance here and now - even if this leads to

A roundhouse-kick-radicality that sometimes feels moralizing and partly unfair even to antecedent

activists. (And no, I am not part of that generation and often enough annoyed myself, but try to

Understand.)

I’m not keen of discussing it in a context, though, where Alexander Bard can blatantly display his near-hatred

Anger on certain minority activism without being sanctioned, just days after a shooting in a synagogue and

Lethal threats to critics of Trump, with daily Police brutality towards POC, regular attacks on homes for asylum

Seekers in Germany, harassment of anti-Trump academics in the US and similar harassments of academics

Criticising right-wing politics now - even structurally organised - by the AfD in Germany as well, and ongoing

And normalised discrimination of and assaults on women.

Incitement to violence is a spark easily ignited these days.

Last but not least, I have the impression A.B. never really had to speak up for himself against a mainstream

Opinion, otherwise he would know how much courage it takes and that it is no way just 'fighting for one’s

Own good‘ but helps numerous others affected by that norm, and that keeping quiet and adapting, even at

The high price of ongoing unfair treatment, is often the easier way.

It seems to be necessary to point out that repeating just a mainstream opinion, once it is tumbling and

Forced to open up to multi-perspective views, does n o t count as such.

Best, N

Ps: Alice and Ian, your mails arrived while I wrote this, thanks again