quarrk [he/him] @ quarrk @hexbear.net

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Joined

3 yr. ago

This thread prompted me to finally start on Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. It’s looking like the perfect thing to read for me right now, having just completed Camus’ The Rebel. The topic is very similar but they’re starting from different attitudes: Fanon, the colonized; Camus, the French Algerian settler. The disgusting conclusions Camus draws are, I think, inextricably linked to his settler background.

Consider the way Camus develops the concept of rebellion:

What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion. A slave who has taken orders all his life suddenly decides that he cannot obey some new command. What does he mean by saying “no”? He means, for example, that “this has been going on too long,” “up to this point yes, beyond it no,” “you are going too far,” or, again, “there is a limit beyond which you shall not go.” In other words, his no affirms the existence of a borderline.

and later (emphasis mine):

The act of rebellion carries him far beyond the point he had reached by simply refusing. He exceeds the bounds that he fixed for his antagonist, and now demands to be treated as an equal.

Compare with Fanon (emphasis mine):

To dislocate the colonial world does not mean that once the borders have been eliminated there will be a right of way between the two sectors. To destroy the colonial world means nothing less than demolishing the colonist’s sector, burying it deep within the earth or banishing it from the territory. Challenging the colonial world is not a rational confrontation of viewpoints. It is not a discourse on the universal, but the impassioned claim by the colonized that their world is fundamentally different.

Fanon considers the colonized rebel and draws a conclusion opposite to Camus. Rebellion, rather than asserting equality according to Camus, instead asserts difference.

There's something just so...disgusting about Blue MAGA. Like, far fouler than CHUDs.

Marx put it best: “[Vulgar economy] confines itself to systematising in a pedantic way, and proclaiming for everlasting truths, the trite ideas held by the self-complacent bourgeoisie with regard to their own world, to them the best of all possible worlds.”

What are liberals if not the intellectual heirs of the same vulgar economists?

Chuds on the other hand are basically anti-systematization. They’re willing to acknowledge the obvious, to override their own models when they fail. Of course, the ends are still evil, but without the pretense.

Camus seems like a weasley little imperialist

This phrase has been living in my head and it’s ringing so true. I’m mostly finished with The Rebel and Camus really annoyed me with his attempted attacks on Marx(ism). At this point I assume the personality cult around Camus is about aesthetic and edginess, but I also haven’t had much time to cool off after reading it.

I plan to read the book you mentioned, so thank you for that recommendation

I just read the part of Albert Camus’s The Rebel which so angered Sartre and ruined their friendship. All I can say is holy shit, this book is so effective as anti communist ragebait that I’m surprised I can’t find much discussion about it from the Marxist perspective. At best I’ve only found the perspective of weird niche Sartre fans who fancy themselves smarter and more special than Marx.

There’s always an equivalent way using a more advanced sentence structure. Parentheses are just the lazy way / bad habit.

Example:

• I went to the store this afternoon (I was out of milk) and I ran into an old friend.
• I went to the store this afternoon because I was out of milk. There, I ran into an old friend.

Totally normal prison sentence

Five nanoseconds after the last time I thought this

I stepped up my usage of Anki. Been using it for language learning, but I want to branch out and use it for general memory and learning. My weakness in education is that I often stop short of the details, satisfied learning only the broad concepts. I suppose my attitude has been, if I understand the concepts, then I can reproduce any particular detail as needed. But at this point, I really ought to do better with trivia because it does matter and is often practical.

I imported a couple shared decks. One for trigonometric identities, and another for geography. I'll add these in with my daily language flashcards. Moving forward though, I want to create my own cards. Should be better for learning, and I can make them more personal e.g. friends' birthdays or coworkers' names.

Unless it’s a country in the Bible

She’s also dead

Why did I read “dead” instead of “dad”

Rorschach’d the title too hard

the fact that you get ripped off in the deal doesn't change that

What deal? When does the typical American sign it?

I dont accept the dichotomy of colony-or-neglected-region. It’s ruling class versus the working class, always has been.

It’s not realistic or useful to conceive of entire societies as class-conscious conspirators. No country has ever achieved that kind of uniform ideology, not even the Soviets nor communist China.

Abstract theory is of far lesser importance compared with the material circumstances of one’s own life, in terms that one understands. This generally means issues local to one’s town, neighborhood, and household. Thinking larger than that is pretty much unnatural and requires dedicated effort.

A backward family in, say, rural Kansas is going to be mostly aware and educated of their immediate issues, like the success of their farm and the stability of their family. All other issues of politics are viewed through this lens. When Junior joins the military, his family celebrates because it’s a path to economic stability for them, and they have little reason to doubt US foreign policy propaganda. They have no tangible experience that might be had in Ferguson or Philly or NYC. They’re basically ignorant (though not necessarily more ignorant in every way compared with the urban proletariat)

US is imperial core. It’s just that the whole labor-aristocracy thing has been greatly exaggerated. Whenever I hear that I just want to ask them if they’ve ever been to Philly or Baltimore or NYC or LA or Portland or… or, or. There is so much poverty in the US, and its visibility is a feature - a warning to the proletariat who barely clasp a semblance of an income.

The economy in the US is highly financialized, this is true. But the fact that this is nevertheless necessary labor is demonstrated by 1) the fact that it is hired at all in private industry, 2) the profound aggression by which the state fights unions and other collective efforts.

h3 particle

“HB is libbing out” isn’t critique directed at Zohran. It’s wrecker behavior whether you intended that or not (I truly don’t think you did). Vague insults that no one can meaningfully engage with (you don’t seem to want to further discuss the specific points of the post beyond it feeling lib) isn’t adding anything, it’s harmful actually.

I don’t feel negatively toward you individually and don’t want this to draw out into a back and forth, so I’ll leave it alone

Mamdani has nothing to gain by using stronger language than he already has. He just needs to apply China’s “do nothing, win” strategy because all of the opposition is doing the work for him.

I don’t mean he should compromise on principles but I think you are greatly exaggerating the significance of this statement. No one on HB is expecting this guy to be Lenin 2.0, that gets repeated every day. Mamdani appears to be a clear win for the left, not a total victory, but damn y’all are so used to losing that you forgot how to win

It really does read like an Onion article.

I think we don’t disagree significantly. I had in mind the Democrats generally losing elections up and down the ballot as they fail to respond to the undermining of what little democracy did exist in the US. There’s a real possibility that MAGA solidifies control over the entire government for more than the usual back-and-forth of presidential terms. If that happens, the Democrats won’t be taken seriously anymore by anyone except their most dedicated followers.

Has any effective organization ever began with an individual publishing a manifesto?

If your org is wrong on an issue, you are obligated to critique them. Not doing so is one of the types of liberalism. But I wouldn’t call such a critique a manifesto. It would be an essay. It would have a relatively narrow scope on whatever issue you disagree on.

If you disagree with everything your org is doing, then just leave it.