Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Beware the Breakthrough Institute

I just stumbled on a piece by a fellow at the Break. Inst. named Alex Tremblath. It is super- accelerationist, with a devotion to technology and libertarian "non-ideological" ideology that is actually pretty stunning. The author claims the politics of Left/ Right are outmoded, that now we can divide folks into two new camps; the "upwinging and downwinging", shorthand for optimist true believers and pessimist downers. These Breakthrough folks are the newest champions for growth, development and progress, all uncritically embraced as humanities great destiny.

let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not just corporate shills but that they just haven't heard of Faustus, that they got addicted to the kool-aid (easy enough to do)and truly believe "human ingenuity" in a competitive setting can solve any problem.

"...growth, technology and accelerated modernization can solve the twin problems of poverty and environmental devastation." In other words, when you have bet large and you are losing your shirt, the best policy is to double-down. Sure, 1 in 6 deaths are attributable to pollution, sure, the insect population is crashing, sure, we have entered the anthropocene, but don't be a "downswinger" a "collapse-porn addict" (Leigh Phillips) and lose faith in progress.

One of Breakthrough's biggest fans is Mr. Reason and Rationality himself, David Brooks of the NYTimes. In a recent column he said we need to keep the faith in "an innovative breakthrough that benefits society" and here I suspect they are talking about nuclear power and fracking for energy, robots and AI for labor and space exploration for a new place to live.

Of course historical amnesia is the key marker for our age, along with worship of the Wise and Powerful Market. Downswinging dommsdayers are being targeted as the enemy of the Enlightenment and Rationality, of hope and optimism by those whose only gaze is Forward. But the ecomodernists: Nordhaus, Shellenberger and crew, are just pigs with lipstick. Their so-called utopian courage is just an apology for maintaining the status quo of the profit system.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

350.org Again. I know.

I have spilled considerable digital ink criticizing 350 and its "leader" Bill Mc Kibben and this is just one more shot...but it occurs to me they have utterly failed at mobilizing any kind of climate movement and we see no sign that they have in any way re-considered their ideological underpinnings nor strategy. Today's email message is a call to "send thousands of comments within hours of Pruitt's announcement" to "send a strong message". Yeah right. They absolutely don't get it. The EPA, Pruitt, Trump, none of them give a rat's ass about "comments". But having boxed themselves into the regulatory corner, 350 now finds itself impotent and useless. And slowly taking the whole climate movement down with it.

But it is hardly alone. Look at the anti-war movement, Black Lives Matter, Fight for 15, Occupy, Indivisible, the Bernie folks, etc.., all the "progressive campaigns" that Rebecca Solnit finds inspiring, and tell me where they are hiding. Because I can't see them. Like 350, they chose to fight on the terrain of capitalist "democracy" and they are all sending useless "comments" to those who mock them. They litigate in courts whose judges mock them. They write letters to editors, they click online petitions, and send donations. They field candidates for the Democratic Party. But they pose absolutely no threat to anyone in a position of real power, have no idea where power really abides and have no desire to take power themselves.

350 will defend itself by pointing to "all the great thinks being done on the local level". Well I'm looking out my window and I see nothing changing. Maybe a few more hybrid vehicles, maybe a solar panel or two. The failure in messaging strategy is illustrated by this latest email as well. It proclaims: "The Clean Power Plan would prevent up to 6,600 premature deaths and 150,000 asthma attacks."

In the first place, the Plan was just a rule put in place by an agency, not legislation, so we knew that what the agency giveth, the agency taketh away. In other words, the big "change" they thought they had won was just an illusion. In the second place, not to minimize the seriousness of asthma attacks, but we are facing an existential crisis here, civilization collapse, a terrifying future on a global scale. But if you signal to people it is only about asthma and "premature deaths" (whatever that means), you both confuse them and pacify them. You make those telling the truth sound hyperbolic and you make people think a Presidential Agency Rule can save the earth. Which is bullshit.

Saturday, October 7, 2017

Resentiment

There are volumes being written on the roots of Trumpism. This will just be a quick survey of what I have found valuable. Wendy Brown just published a speech she gave called: Apocalyptic populism in which she identifies Trump as an antidote for perceived white male castration. As a reaction to the discourse of privilege, these perceptions of persecution have attached themselves firmly to the sub-conscious of Joe Everyman left behind by de-industrialization, left feeling impotent by feminism, and left feeling racially embattled by rising numbers of black and brown people.

Annie Kelly has an article in the same periodical (Eurozine) looking at the rise of the so-called "alt-right". She too finds the challenge to white masculinity at the root of this phenomena and I think it is a large part of the cultural anxiety that animates the current populism seen throughout many of the western liberal democracies. Of course Muslim societies are going through their own radical reactions to modern feminism and challenges to cultural identity. I find both analyses compelling and would add here the notion of jouissance as described by Jodi Dean, that is, the obscene enjoyment many feel seeing a wrecking ball smashing up prohibitions and shouting the things no one would whisper.

And then we might add in the ties to a growing libertarianism which sees these same threats in economic terms, as threats to market "freedoms" and individual liberty by an ever-encroaching state. Into this mix I think we should further add Southern Anxiety, a particular resentment arising from the legacy of slave-holding, the Civil War and the modern civil rights movement.Here is where Pat Buchanan meets James Buchanan ( the Chicago School economist, not the idiot President) meets Dukes of Hazard. Southern culture on the skids and taking the whole planet with it.

All this begs the question: Is there a way the anti-capitalist left could tap into this resentment and re-direct it in a positive direction? How could feminism become less threatening to the wounded male ego? We know that the German leftist party Die Linke lost votes to the ethno-nationalist Right in the recent election, but is this a reversible trend? Could chauvinists be turned against their true oppressors, the very market forces they have been taught to worship?