The Post-Left

[peanutbutter]

So, I always used to think of the post-left as being people like Nick Cohen. People who were once active leftists but effectively cashed-in their chips in order to assume these weird positions whereby they are 'leftist' for the sake of newspapers being able to say they represent leftist views but in reality they spend all of their time shitting on the left before eventually emerging as Hitchens-style right wing talking heads.

Then I started hearing references to the contemporary post-left. Initially it was people like Aimee Therese and Angela Nagel, then it was podcasts like Redscare and forums like reddit's stupidpol and then, even more recently it's people like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.

Some of these people (most notably the last two) had chips to cash in and so we can view them as being similar to Cohen and Hitchens but a lot of the others seem to have staked out their positions right from the start. Positions that seem to be about wanting to do a racism, and being incredibly angry at both the left and the liberals who won't allow them to do a racism. While their loathing of the online left and their hostility to what they view as wokeness places them in the orbit of the right, the post-left continues to use leftist language to justify what are often horrendous politics. Some might argue that this is deliberate and that this is the much-fabled Chapo-to-fash pipeline but a lot of it seems to be personality based and all about cliques of people putting a political spin on personal fallings out.

Anyone familiar with any of this stuff?

Taibbi and (to a lesser extent) Greenwald are both still capable of being good on things, they're just both massively massively warped by all of their time on Twitter; Greenwald to a terminal degree.

Still not totally sure what Aimee Therese even is but isn't Nagle just an absurdly myopic individual? Absolutely everything winds up going back to how much she hated Tumblr's politics and she seems to have refused to let her opinions move evolve. Is she even remotely relevant now beyond being occasionally brought up as an example of how Chapo is bad?



Red Scare is kinda tricky to pin down, I'm not sure it's actively pretty toxic on a political level, think it's more just a sort of parasocial release.

[TrenterPercenter]

Can we have some example of the offences these people have carried out; I'm seeing a lot of asserting that these people are bad but very little in the way of why?

I don't bother with twitter on a cost-benefit analysis it isn't worth it and the warping the poster above is alluding to seems to effect everyone whilst everyone thinks they are immune.  It's just not worth it.

But I am interested in how these people are falling foul of the left; I'm going to hazard a guess that this is all hyperbolic nonsense but I would like to be proved wrong.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

One thing I have seen online is the Good Boys and Girls of twitter trying to 'own' Greenwald by saying its good that the US is designating its own citizens as terrorists. Terrifying! Beat the bad man on Twitter by ratting out your xenophobic uncle to the feds!

[TrenterPercenter]

I've mentioned before that there is lots to not like about John McWhorters but some of his stuff on the Elect is just too insightful to ignore.

I am so righteous and moral that if anyone questions anything I say it must mean they are against all that I stand for; I own this righteous podium and it belongs to me, look at me mum!

[bgmnts]

I don't even know if I'm left wing anymore.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I think the other thing that baffles me is the idea that this is lead by "straight white bros". Um, I can see why some people want to believe that but how long can you hang on to that assumption? Have people checked out the communities that support most of this stuff and who the fanbases for shockjock podcasts like Red Scare are?

If anything the blue tick/weird twitter intersectionality-or-death crowd seem to be more predominantly white, male, middle class, post-SA stock, etc. Not all but a lot of the more notorious 'post left' groups from stupidpol offshoots to more academic stuff are some of the more diverse places around. I think some people would do a wee bit of a faint if they realised who Adolph Reed's audience actually is, and who is still turning out for Zizek.

[greenman]

I wouldn't say its really that surprising though, a gigantic amount of effort goes into trying to present the centralist position as the most representative of a cross section of society, a lot of tokenism in the media and politics.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

It much be the Straighst At It Again with their spamming Zizek is An Egg in corporate pride threads and making photoshops where Agent Cooper calls people shitlibs and barfs on a copy of Fanged Noumena.

[peanutbutter]

RE: Greeenwald, he seems to operate from a idea that if he's calling out shit on all sides he'll be able to get onto Tucker Carlson or whatever and bring up actual important stuff that gets fuck all coverage. Critiques of his current output tend to be that he's became so fixated on specifically the left when it comes to US discourse that he's basically just a pawn that's playing into their hands.

Whichever it is, he's definitely online far too much.



Gets hard to tell whether any of these guys are still doing any good work when their actual work is on substack and their prickly social media presences give off the impression that they've gone a bit insane. Maybe Matt Taibbi (who has been a pretty great writer) has written some very solid pieces in the last year, absolutely none of it has gotten any traction beyond his subscribers from what I've seen though

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Greenwald is infuriating, always has been. He's right 20% of the time and about incredibly important stuff but the 80% is either cultural wars bullshit or libertarian provocation that makes the important parts radioactive to people who otherwise might have been persuaded. He's certainly capable of being persuasive if he wants to.

Tho, that said. It is at the very least INCREDIBLY DODGY the most hated and loathed journalist in the anglophone world is also the guy whose investigative journalism in Brazil, where the CIA practically installed of the most of the most dangerous and genocidal leaders of our time, is bolstering a socialist opposition and exposing hard right corruption and media manipulation. That's the guy american liberals want to grind our teeth about.

[Buelligan]

I wouldn't say its really that surprising though, a gigantic amount of effort goes into trying to present the centralist position as the most representative of a cross section of society, a lot of tokenism in the media and politics.

You're completely right.  Also a lot of ownership - no one owns The Left, that's a big part of the whole point.

[lipsink]

Apart from Tony Benn, I can't think of many people who have gone from right to left.

Bercow seems like he's maybe going that way. Didn't he just join Labour? Know that doesn't mean much these days but still.

[Pijlstaart]

Watching yesteryear Shaun Woodward buy the most expensive set of steak knives Woolworths has to offer has been the privilege of my life. We are all on the left now, I clapped from the caged-off pick and mix section, pulling back my boiler suit sleeve to proffer an emaciated forearm in a comradely fashion for him to chew up, which he politely declined. "Redistribute dose teef prints, comrade" I called after him, for too long all the best bite marks have been left on the arses of the children of the rich. It'll trickle down, we are all on the left.

[chveik]

not keen on people that still insists on using the word 'retarded', greenwald's terfism or the kind of bullshit zizek and his pals say about migrants. it doesn't make the other arguments they could have worthless, it's just that i'm somewhat skeptical of their interests in ending the capitalistic domination of the working class while not throwing minorities under the bus. if that makes me a 'race/gender reductionnist' or a righteous hypocrite so be it.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Devil's advocating for him is worthwhile sometimes, but Zizek's Chesterton-quoting schtick is a definite forerunner of some of the worst sentiments in the 'post left' and the fact that it went on for over ten years before there was any major complaints or critiques beyond niche academic journals is embarrassing. Especially considering the bullshit people were trying to call Zizek out for at the time.

Strip away Lacan and the funny parts and its just using pop culture references to say open borders is a conspiracy.

[chveik]

you could also add the complete disinterest towards the ecological crisis that some academics/activists on the left have expressed for years (badiou for instance, i do like some of this work but it's a huge blindspot).

[TrenterPercenter]

not keen on people that still insists on using the word 'retarded', greenwald's terfism or the kind of bullshit zizek and his pals say about migrants. it doesn't make the other arguments they could have worthless, it's just that i'm somewhat skeptical of their interests in ending the capitalistic domination of the working class. if that makes me a 'race/gender reductionnist' or a righteous hypocrite so be it.

That isn't what makes you a race/gender reductionist or a righteous hypocrite; trying own your own reductionism and righteousness by passing it off as something that is dependant on you not liking people that use derogatory terms might well be though and in such distort reasonable criticism of race reductionism is much better candidate.


I mean you do know who are proud race reductionists............racists and people that don't like migrants.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Zizek used to talk about ecological crisis a lot over a decade ago but it broke off. It used to be a common gotcha against relativists and deconstructionists: you can't deny the universal threat posed by global warming.

Badiou has spoken/written about climate change extensively, but its always in the frame of his own arcane re-definition of what 'nature' means, so maybe that doesn't count. He's argued against both 'nature' as a depoliticised field that delimits politics and 'nature' as just as construct of human scientific discourses and the limits of technology. I guess main complaint is that as one of the major voices in the 'old left' who advocates for migrant or undocumented workers, Badiou has never really definitely drawn a line from climate deplacement to worker migrancy? He's said that the abolition of private property is the major, immediate imperative provoked by climate change - and, he's not wrong is he? (unless you're not a Marxist)

[chveik]

That isn't what makes you a race/gender reductionist or a righteous hypocrite; trying own your own reductionism and righteousness by passing it off as something that is dependant on you not liking people that use derogatory terms might well be though and in such distort reasonable criticism of race reductionism is much better candidate.


I mean you do know who are proud race reductionists............racists and people that don't like migrants.

i think you should be careful. in some circle there's this idea that the reintroduction of the category of 'race' in popular discourse is actually going to increase racism or at least is giving some conceptual basis to proud racists. i seriously doubt this is how it works, i feel like the fact that there are more discussion around police brutality and the like, even if it's clumsily theorized, is a good thing. and by discussion i also mean protests/direct action.

[TrenterPercenter]

obviously, i'm not that much of a dunce, but we don't need prominent leftists to agree with some of this shit, it's counter-productive

And supporting race and gender reductionism isn't counter-productive?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Tho if you write a long editorial about climate change for a national newspaper, probably not good if you stay in ancient Greece for five whole paragraphs.

[chveik]

i've edited my post

[TrenterPercenter]

Tho if you write a long editorial about climate change for a national newspaper, probably not good if you stay in ancient Greece for five whole paragraphs.

Zizek is well Zizek, but I very much doubt he agrees with anti-migrant sentiments - as always perhaps someone can give me an example or evidence rather than this continual (and usually exaggerated) spin on what people say so they can be placed something that are quite usually not.

Hilarious however the notion of being proud to be a race reductionist whilst being against racism.  It's just all such batshit rubbish.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I was talking about Badiou doing an editorial on climate change for Le Monde, and making it another paper on Lucretius v Parmenides.

Which, fair dos, will be useful in the post-oil climate apocalypse when Lord Humungus rides up and tells us he'll take all our baguettes unless we can prove to him that Nothing exists.

[chveik]

Zizek is well Zizek, but I very much doubt he agrees with anti-migrant sentiments - as always perhaps someone can give me an example or evidence rather than this continual (and usually exaggerated) spin on what people say so they can be placed something that are quite usually not.

his position on migrants (being against open borders) is really well-known, it's a bit weird that you're not aware of this.

[TrenterPercenter]

i think you should be careful. in some circle there's this idea that the reintroduction of the category of 'race' in popular discourse is actually going to increase racism or at least is giving some conceptual basis to proud racists. i seriously doubt this is how it works, i feel like the fact that there are more discussion around police brutality and the like, even if it's clumsily theorized, is a good thing.

Do you even know what you are talking about?

Race reductionists on the left are the ones reintroducing race into the popular discourse; those and the usual racists; it's the Marxists that are saying don't do it and to stop reinflating a made up persecutory pseudo-science from the 18th century.

[TrenterPercenter]

his position on migrants is really well-known, it's a bit weird that you're not aware of this

Oh really could you expand please? perhaps a link?


From his mouth if at all possible.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I think the focus on race in popular discourse is already having negative effects, both in the "fuel for the far right" sense and in the sense fracturing the left into antagonistic, anti-universal blocs.

One of the key things is that working class racial minorities loathe it - it drastically reduces the outreach of leftist parties to these people as they view it as homogenising, insulting, middle class, elitist, derogatory, etc. I could give very specific examples in French politics but I've been asked not to post too much about that. Words like "racialised", "bodies", etc. create a repellent image in the minds of most workers who aren't white and give the impression that they're just there to slot into somebody else's political projects.

Oh really could you expand please? perhaps a link?

Sadly just one example.

[chveik]

Do you even know what you are talking about?

of course i do.

Sadly just one example.

yep, i'm sure you could an epub of it on soulseek

[Kankurette]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while: what is a race reductionist?