[iDC] partial vs. peripheral attention

Wed Jan 3 07:38:17 EST 2007

Hi Brian,

As you explain it below, I cannot but agree with the analysis of the dual
system being put in place, and perhaps liberal-fascism is a useful concept,
though I don't favor it, since I equate fascism with both a violent mass
movement and a totalitarian regime, both of which are missing.

I can also see your dialectic of resistance/anonymity, though I believe that
we are witnessing an extraordinary time of both constructing alternatives,
day to day, and of an enormous amount of individuals and communities
'thinking' about it. So as we see the old dissolving or getting worse, the
seeds of the new are there on a unprecedented scale as well.

As for saying, betraying "all" the ideals, I find that a dangerous
mechanism, since it does not take into account how much much worse any
situation can be. Social movements and individual consciousness have been
battered since the 1980s, undoubtedly, but defeated or destroyed, I do not
think so.

By the way, I'm in Paris for seminars from Jan. 20 to February 5, if you're
open to a meet-up, or to join the seminar that Yann/Carlo are preparing for
me, let me know,

Michel

On 1/3/07, Brian Holmes <brian.holmes at wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>
> Hi Michel -
>
> Nice to hear from you.
>
> > So, I'm less pessimistic than Brian. Current generations are less
> > inclined to fight 'against', and so might seem passive from an activist
> > point of view, but they are qualitatively differently constructing their
> > lives autonomously and collectively. They are more distrustful of media
> > and institutions than we were 30-50 years ago (see edelman trust
> > barometer).
>
> I have definitely noticed the above here in France where I live most of
> the time. What we see on the political side, specifically in this
> country, are sporadic outbreaks of clear and focused resistance, marked
> by intense (and oh how comprehensible) mistrust of both media and
> government, then retreats into a kind of anonymity which not only emits
> no political signs, but does not even seem certain of having a political
> memory. It is a bit enigmatic, and maybe not only to myself.
>
> > This echoes my own experience when I was in a class of American students
> > here in Chiang Mai 2 years ago: yes, they knew very little about the
> > 'facts' of the world (no one new the name of Khadafy, to mention just
> > one), but on the other hand, the level of sharing, mutual support, and
> > civility was way beyond my own experience when I was a student.
>
> Yeah, in America we're very good at sharing, civility, mutual support.
> But Marcuse also invented the concept of repressive tolerance for
> America in the 1960s. Unfortunately the USA, where people are so nice,
> is also very good at carrying out the worst as an imperial power. People
> who know nothing about the history of American interventions in Latin
> America or Asia, who don't even know about the history of racism in
> America, and are at the same time so nice, frankly make me very nervous
> after a while. It's the reason I left. Which is not to say that the
> above characterization of ignorance applies to everyone living there, of
> course not. After Seattle in particular there seemed to be a change and
> I started to come back. But it's a micro-change and it's not on most
> people's radar. 9/11 was specifically used to erase the new political
> consciousness from public space and so it now appears to be "latent"
> again (something which I nonetheless find interesting and hopeful).
>
> No one would know it from what I write on this particular forum, but I
> too am actually very sharing, civil and full of mutual support. However
> I can't bring myself to do it in public. It seems somehow obscene not to
> be deeply critical of a society that has betrayed all (yes, the word is
> exact) of its primary ideals.
>
> > I have a question to Brian though, something that has bothered me. How
> > would you define fascism, in your claim that we are descending into
> > fascism? Of course, I'm not denying that we're experiencing a
> > securization pattern after 9/11, but fascism?
>
> Well, in the US after Congress passed Bush's military commissions act,
> it's a country where constitutional guarantees including habeas corpus
> can be suspended whenever the administration wants to put someone up for
> military trial. In other words they can take people and not say why.
> That is a classic "state of exception" moving toward old-style fascism
> (though I don't think it will actually go there). And because that
> exists, I allowed myself to use the simple word "fascism," without
> getting into the concept I have been developing elsewhere in my work
> over the last few years. However, what I really think is on the horizon,
> and not only in the US but also in Europe, is rather the more
> paradoxical condition of "liberal-fascism," where all the freedoms
> required to do business remain in place, but a security state
> accompanied by an all-embracing ideological justification of state
> violence develops at the same time. Liberal-fascism means you have
> liberalism for the included people, and raw police/military treatment
> for the excluded. The malleability of the included/excluded line is
> pretty clear. This condition has been appearing all over the Western
> world since 9/11. Look into the militarization of the US-Mexico border
> and of the Mediterranean, and look at the tremendous rise in deaths at
> those borders since 2000, and you will see what I mean.
>
> Liberal-fascism is resistible, but only if people are prepared to admit
> that security itself is a problem, not a solution. The solution to
> security problems is to devote social resources to the legitimate gripes
> of people suffering under deep inequalities and conditions of
> exploitation, oppression and domination. This does not mean you put a
> flower in every gun: things have gotten very bad in the world and there
> will be deep tensions for a long time, requiring what we now now as
> security. What is called "radical Islamism" is not a joke, to take the
> most obvious example. However, large-scale programs of co-development
> across the present exclusionary frontiers surrounding the EU and
> Canada-USA would make apparent to the entire world that the primary
> ideals of equality, justice, freedom of movement for everyone and shared
> technological progress are being respected; and then the developed world
> would regain some peace and maybe some self-respect as well.
> Particularly if the same primary ideals were applied WITHIN the borders
> of those regions! Let me hasten to add that there is another focus of
> major inequality in the world, contributing greatly, but in very
> different ways, to this horizon of liberal-fascism: Saudi Arabia and the
> principalities bordering on it. I hope someday to study that, but
> haven't yet.
>
> all the best, Brian
>
>
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