Excellent, levelheaded writing. Although as a Jew I stand with Israel, I appreciate your clear-eyed perspective. I've always been very cynical of those who scream that they care only for others, because I believe (as you alluded) that a lot of evil comes from this front of altruism. It becomes an excuse for anything, because anything is cloaked in virtuosity. I've also been surprised to see that almost everyone I followed on the lockdown critical left has taken views on Israel from deeply conspiratorial (it's all made up) to the traditional left perspective of pointing to Israel as the big bad military industrial complex villain and Gaza as the poor victims. I think with so much propaganda, so much pain people are carrying, they believe nothing from the news and will side with whoever looks like the antiestablishment.
Insightful analysis as always. I share your ethos and have been estranged from the militant left since college -"les gauchistes engagés" who coerce solidarity with faraway causes while their local communities crumble. Dickens portrayed these people very accurately in Bleak House: I'm thinking of Mrs. Jellyby, who is so fanatically devoted to her philantropic endeavors in Africa (which ultimately fail) that she studiously neglects her family and her needy neighbors.
I've appreciated your arguments before—in particular, "Gendercraft"—but what you're saying above isn't mere contrarianism, it's arrant nonsense. Solidarity isn't a luxury good; it's the essence of any left-wing politics worthy of the name—you DO still claim to be on the left, don't you? The idea that fascism of all things was built on solidarity is, to put it mildly, nonsense—fascism was explicitly built on an anti-solidaristic division of society! Your "analysis" of the current conflict in Palestine is almost exactly wrong. While there HAVE been pro-Palestinian leftists who've disingenuously downplayed Hamas's atrocities, I'm one of the many many in solidarity with Palestine who have (correctly) condemned Hamas while also (correctly) condemning the Netanyahu administration's campaign in the Gaza Strip, which is quite literally genocidal. You condemn the Squad's statements on Palestine—one of the few courageous things that pack of weak liberals has ever done—as a supposed indulgence, ignoring the deep political costs of doing so. You unironically quote Ayn Rand, whose worldview is essentially upside-down Stalinism on behalf of the already-rich, whose quoted "analysis" is just sub-par Nietzsche. I repeat, I've been impressed by your arguments before—but this shit is a bridge too far.
Hi Paul, thanks for your comment. No, I'm not on the left, and I'm surprised that anyone who reads my work, including "Gendercraft", could think this. In my lifetime alone, the only function the left has served is to be the foot soldiers of capital, of imperial wars, of social division, of authoritarianism, and, lately, and very openly, too, the adherents of fascist bio political totalitarianism. What I am instead is a radical individualist and democrat - like Marx himself. Solidarity is a code word for collectivism, an ideology that puts "the common good before individual rights", as Goebbels had it.
By the way, In his Minima Moralia, Adorno has written a nice aphorism on the term "solidarity": "In the meantime, however solidarity has been replaced by trust that the party has a thousand eyes, to leaning on the workers' battalions, which have which have long since become uniformed, as the stronger ones, with the current of world history. What can be gained in terms of security is paid for with permanent fear, with cowering, manoeuvring and ventriloquism. The forces with which one could feel out the weakness of the adversary
are used to anticipate the impulses of of one's own leaders, before whom one trembles more inwardly than before the old enemy, foreseeing that in the end the leaders on both sides will be on the backs of those they have integrated."
Elena, how does one live through this “11 times” yet come out thinking that this is a conflict where both sides are to blame?
What is Hamas? At best, they’re a tool for the Israeli government to justify their brutalisation of innocent Palestinians and an 80-year long ethnic cleansing campaign. Why else was it propped up by Netanyahu to discredit the Palestinian Liberation Organization?
If one has a brain, let alone a heart, they automatically side with Palestinians. Not because they are “running after a flag”, but because anyone with sense can see that this is an apartheid state murdering civilians and robbing them of their land and heritage.
The Hamas soldiers who committed those atrocities have probably never set foot outside of Gaza before that day. So imagine, Ms. Lange, if “your people” were systematically subjugated, murdered, widowed, orphaned, starved, and poisoned for the better part of a century. I’m sure they’d whet their blades on the bodies of their colonizers too.
Excellent, levelheaded writing. Although as a Jew I stand with Israel, I appreciate your clear-eyed perspective. I've always been very cynical of those who scream that they care only for others, because I believe (as you alluded) that a lot of evil comes from this front of altruism. It becomes an excuse for anything, because anything is cloaked in virtuosity. I've also been surprised to see that almost everyone I followed on the lockdown critical left has taken views on Israel from deeply conspiratorial (it's all made up) to the traditional left perspective of pointing to Israel as the big bad military industrial complex villain and Gaza as the poor victims. I think with so much propaganda, so much pain people are carrying, they believe nothing from the news and will side with whoever looks like the antiestablishment.
Yeah, the anti-lockdowners are not great on the Israel attacks.
Insightful analysis as always. I share your ethos and have been estranged from the militant left since college -"les gauchistes engagés" who coerce solidarity with faraway causes while their local communities crumble. Dickens portrayed these people very accurately in Bleak House: I'm thinking of Mrs. Jellyby, who is so fanatically devoted to her philantropic endeavors in Africa (which ultimately fail) that she studiously neglects her family and her needy neighbors.
"What superficially looks like a “selfish”, egotistical position would in fact spare the people of this world a lot of suffering..."
Yes.
Timely your passage post from The Fountainhead just before the attacks.
I learned to question in college (when that was still a thing) whether true altruism actually existed.
I came to my own conclusion: no.
And that's not a bad thing.
Let's be honest about it. It will save a lot of grief and manipulation. Which, ironically, is a way of indirectly helping humanity after all.
I've appreciated your arguments before—in particular, "Gendercraft"—but what you're saying above isn't mere contrarianism, it's arrant nonsense. Solidarity isn't a luxury good; it's the essence of any left-wing politics worthy of the name—you DO still claim to be on the left, don't you? The idea that fascism of all things was built on solidarity is, to put it mildly, nonsense—fascism was explicitly built on an anti-solidaristic division of society! Your "analysis" of the current conflict in Palestine is almost exactly wrong. While there HAVE been pro-Palestinian leftists who've disingenuously downplayed Hamas's atrocities, I'm one of the many many in solidarity with Palestine who have (correctly) condemned Hamas while also (correctly) condemning the Netanyahu administration's campaign in the Gaza Strip, which is quite literally genocidal. You condemn the Squad's statements on Palestine—one of the few courageous things that pack of weak liberals has ever done—as a supposed indulgence, ignoring the deep political costs of doing so. You unironically quote Ayn Rand, whose worldview is essentially upside-down Stalinism on behalf of the already-rich, whose quoted "analysis" is just sub-par Nietzsche. I repeat, I've been impressed by your arguments before—but this shit is a bridge too far.
Hi Paul, thanks for your comment. No, I'm not on the left, and I'm surprised that anyone who reads my work, including "Gendercraft", could think this. In my lifetime alone, the only function the left has served is to be the foot soldiers of capital, of imperial wars, of social division, of authoritarianism, and, lately, and very openly, too, the adherents of fascist bio political totalitarianism. What I am instead is a radical individualist and democrat - like Marx himself. Solidarity is a code word for collectivism, an ideology that puts "the common good before individual rights", as Goebbels had it.
By the way, In his Minima Moralia, Adorno has written a nice aphorism on the term "solidarity": "In the meantime, however solidarity has been replaced by trust that the party has a thousand eyes, to leaning on the workers' battalions, which have which have long since become uniformed, as the stronger ones, with the current of world history. What can be gained in terms of security is paid for with permanent fear, with cowering, manoeuvring and ventriloquism. The forces with which one could feel out the weakness of the adversary
are used to anticipate the impulses of of one's own leaders, before whom one trembles more inwardly than before the old enemy, foreseeing that in the end the leaders on both sides will be on the backs of those they have integrated."
Elena, how does one live through this “11 times” yet come out thinking that this is a conflict where both sides are to blame?
What is Hamas? At best, they’re a tool for the Israeli government to justify their brutalisation of innocent Palestinians and an 80-year long ethnic cleansing campaign. Why else was it propped up by Netanyahu to discredit the Palestinian Liberation Organization?
If one has a brain, let alone a heart, they automatically side with Palestinians. Not because they are “running after a flag”, but because anyone with sense can see that this is an apartheid state murdering civilians and robbing them of their land and heritage.
The Hamas soldiers who committed those atrocities have probably never set foot outside of Gaza before that day. So imagine, Ms. Lange, if “your people” were systematically subjugated, murdered, widowed, orphaned, starved, and poisoned for the better part of a century. I’m sure they’d whet their blades on the bodies of their colonizers too.
I feel sorry for you.
Isn't it 'altruistic' to feel sorry for somebody?
No.