[iDC] partial vs. peripheral attention

[Brian Holmes]

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