“Of course people are gonna challenge these ideas. There’s nothing really holding these ideas together, is there?”
It’s a lovely picture… What is it??
King Critical argues in a recent video that straying from Liberal orthodoxy does not a Conservative make. He describes the arbitrary groupings with panache, walking us through how going to the source material first started him asking bigger questions.
“So, I looked into Islam and I came to an uncomfortable conclusion – I literally could not believe Islam is true. Because if I did, I would have to believe lots of horrible, horrible, evil things.”
“And I wanna stress this – I don’t mean these things were the *apparent* meaning.” He tells us he read the Koran all the way through, along with official commentaries. As always, he wanted to double-check before making up his mind.
“I don’t mean that these things were the most obvious reading, or the most mainstream reading, or the most scholarly reading. I mean these things would be the *only* reading.
“Really looking towards proper Islamic scholarship, I arrived at a conclusion – Which is no! Context doesn’t help! Interpretation doesn’t help.
“There’s no way to interpret ‘fight the unbelievers until they feel themselves subjugated, because they want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths’ other than, ‘Don’t allow people to criticize Islam, use violence to make them so subordinate that you can just impose your will on them.’
“I don’t see any other way to read that.“
Hitting a wall like this will sound familiar to anyone who’s had a ‘Peak Trans’ moment. When you reach the inescapable conclusion that you are mistaken, the reasonable person will take a step back and have a long think.
Michael says all this to illustrate how quickly party orthodoxy begins to unravel once you start asking questions. “It’s kind of weird that me having a different interpretation of the Koran came to be such a monumental political event for me. Why would that be the case?
“What on earth is the association between believing in man-made climate change and believing that Surah 9:29 through 32 is actually not commanding the subjugation of all non-Muslims?”
I don’t think he means to imply that man-made climate change is nonsense. It seems to be a random example, and maybe that’s the point: “There’s no association between those two things, and yet they’re connected.
“It’s simply because ‘Progressivism’ – as some big, amorphous blob – just decided collectively to be wrong about Islam. The result of that is, when I looked into it, turns out Progressivism is wrong.
Has the cheese slipped off his cracker??
“Similarly, it seems like Progressivism has just *decided*, ‘Let’s believe that biological males can be women if they say so.’ It’s so self-evident that this is nonsense.
“How could anybody possibly be surprised that a critical thinker is not going to be one hundred percent progressive – Or, indeed, one hundred percent conservative?” But the ubiquity of this inclination highlights the dearth of critical thinking out there.
Michael keeps ploughing forward toward his larger point, but his bramble of a question snagged me – What connects the ideas of so-called Progressive parties? And the answer was obvious – Money.
Down The Moneyhole
Progressive politics is all about moral mandates, more concerned with doing the ‘right’ thing than making any sense.
Despite this, after September 11, 2001 and in the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq, objections of a more intellectual bent were growing from the general atmosphere of anti-Muslim sentiment. Christopher Hitchens was a particularly loud, articulate voice, insisting the ‘religion of peace’ was really determined to convert the whole world.
He’s dead now, and his sentiment has long been drowned out by popular repetition of the Good Muslim trope. Conflicting interpretations are a common-sense explanation in a world shaped by Protestantism.
But, as Michael said, “Finding out Islam isn’t true, well, that’s no big deal.” It’s just awfully convenient how this narrative flows right along with the oil contracts we’re all pretty sure Iraq was actually about.
We have seen how the policies of each successive administration don’t actually differ all that much from their predecessor, whatever they may say. Once again, we have to break down the words they use – Neoliberalism by any other name is just as Randian, and actions tell the real story.
Progressive generally refers to social progress, lifting up citizens’ standard of living through technological and bureaucratic innovation.
But progress also means growth, and this begins to bring things into focus.
Is this what he meant when he said he’d keep me tied up all weekend??
An Oily Business
Exxon knew they were screwing us all back in 1982. Their own scientists expressed concern about what their business practices were doing to the environment, and their models looked pretty bad. They tried to cover it up, but by the end of the decade it was widely accepted that greenhouse gas emissions were a problem.
By 2003, the board had been tilted such that George W Bush removed carbon dioxide from the list of regulated pollutants altogether. It’s probably the methane from all those damn inefficient cows, right?
Along a similar timeline, plastics went from modern miracle to environmental disaster. Recycling was everywhere – A system so official, I know plenty of people who saw the reports about Chinese landfills, but still manage several bins as they cling to that sense of control.
Visiting South America in 2003, filmmaker and author Naomi Klein found herself with the vista to see a bigger machine in motion: “If we look at the history of this really quite radical economic model – of privatizing key state assets, deep cuts to these social assets that people tend to protect like healthcare and education – When politicians try to do this under normal circumstances, people tend to organize and resist.”
Pesky populace, wanting their fair share of resources!
“So, the use of crisis for political ends has been a part of the advancement of this ideology.” Naomi laid out her ideas in a book she called Shock Doctrine, “The shocks are getting bigger, a debt crisis isn’t enough to disorient a whole society and convince them to accept their bitter medicine. Crisis is required to rationalize policies that would be rejected under normal circumstances.
“The legacy of this economic system is tremendous inequality.” Traditionally, inequality begets instability.
Leviathan Sheds Its Skin
Naomi’s distant perch and well-developed political vocabulary presented her with an opportunity to connect the dots, “There were all these things going on in Latin America that were all connected in rejection of this economic model. They saw a real connection between their rejection of these policies, and the fact that the same economic program was being imposed in Iraq through tremendous violence.
“You really saw and felt those connections – Bechtel, just thrown out of Bolivia, suddenly shows up in Iraq with the exclusive to rebuild their water system.” How convenient! “It felt like this model that had been imposed peacefully – through the International Monetary Fund, through the World Bank, through the World Trade Organization – that wasn’t working anymore.
“The legacy of inequality was so dramatic that the sales pitch of, ‘just wait for the trickle down’ wasn’t working anymore.” Not only is the trickle not coming, the top layer is designed to absorb it. People decided they were sick of this shit in the 19th century! But the demand for infinite growth means infinite consumption – And eternal colonization.
Jesus, Gary – What the hell did you get us into this time??
“Now there was this new phase – And it wasn’t even asking, and it wasn’t even negotiating, it was just imposed through raw violence. We’ve entered this phase of disaster Capitalism, using a shock to impose what economists call ‘economic shock therapy.’ Austerity measures we know are hard on the poor, but sacrifices must be made for the bottom line. And anyway, if they were productive workers, they wouldn’t be poor!
“Water privatization, electricity privatization, displacing poor people on the coast with hotel developers – A social re-engineering of society in the interest of corporations, which is what we’ve been doing under the banner of Free Trade.” Rolling in elements of social control has allowed the same colonialist consumption mechanism to keep running in the background, an escalator to nowhere.
“But now, it’s under the banner of post-disaster reconstruction.” This always seemed like a weird flex after decades of fearmongering about over-spending, but it’s all about emphasis – In an atmosphere of anxiety, logic gives way to instinct and we become easily lead.
Atmosfear
We have to cut the school lunch program – Do you want your kids to be owned by China? We had to invade Saudi Arabia Iraq because our guy Saddam wasn’t doing what we wanted playing by the rules! Clearly, a bad apple…
This angle makes the old-fashioned theocratic aspirations of the right wing look almost quaint. Trump’s tendency to tell on himself by accusing his opponents of his own tactics might suggest so-called ‘Progressive’ politics should be scrutinized for their obsession with moral mandates. Single-sex spaces were only ever really a moral mandate, unenforceable as our Trans friends have made a point of demonstrating. And when the narrative began to shift, we took too much for granted.
Because there can be no dissent if you don’t ask for consent. Innovation – the very Future itself – is at stake! Climb aboard, and take the endless ride to nowhere.
And I think that’s the twist – A lot of us missed it because the fascist’s mythical shared past has been replaced with a mythical future. The strip mines were necessary, you know – We needed the minerals to power our space-ready gadgets.
Innova-shunned
Most pro-Capitalist arguments are made by those who believe wealth drives innovation. They must have some of their own hearts propped up with this idea, because innovation is part of the human psyche. Innovations in trade and commercial enterprise is what got us here.
True innovation is a group-level effort. Materialists appreciate that real, lasting social progress requires a collective push. ‘Progressives’ may twist language in knots and say anything to feed the bottom line, but they understand the importance of materials.
If we make them pretty colors, they won’t notice they’re all the same!
Opposition is strangled in the cradle as the ultimate narcissist in our midst rationalizes away all the bad thoughts. The right wing wags its finger at you, but their God is waved away as easily as they invoke him.
‘Progressives’ are delivering us to their very real corporate overlords with a smile. Borrowing from power grabs past to dampen dissent, they reassure us while Capital continues to evolve and spread.
What can we do? For now, I think it’s important more people recognize we’re being played by both sides. Yes, Republicans want to take away women’s healthcare. But Democrats are doing their part to make even discussing such things impossible.
Will we be forced to bend the knee for Abraham’s God or Uncle $am? It’s a race to the Fascist line!
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