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The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

kirkcenter.org

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Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#21

Post by YorickPeterse »

noahth wrote: post #9

As a fan of Fisher, it's interesting to read an open-minded review of his work from someone on the right. But the bit about Islam can't be left unchallenged. The reviewer says: >>> I would not claim that Islam is monolithically malign, of course, but someone less constrained by their unconscious sense of ideological appropriateness would ask why interpretations of the faith lead people towards evangelistic violence a…

I think a big difference between Christianity and Islam is that in the west Christianity has been around (or at least more dominant) much longer. I think this has two effects:

1. People are more used to it, and likely less aware of the flaws it has (or might have, as this is in the eye of the beholder). This may lead to people to make claim X, Y, Z about Islam, forgetting that this may have applied in the past (or still does) to Christianity as well

2. It had more time to develop according to the "western ways" so to speak.

Of course this will vary per country, and the US is big enough that it probably even varies per state. The Netherlands for example doesn't really have anything close to for example the Westboro Baptist Church, at least not that I know of and is anywhere near as widely known.

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#22

Post by aabeshou »

prepend wrote: post #18
aabeshou wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.salon.com/2013/08/03/the_10_worst_examples_of_ch... https://www.splcenter.org/20180723/terror-right

Aside from those sources aren’t really reputable, that’s why I said that the right threat is non-zero. It does exist, it’s just less than other threats. OKC was 1995. It makes me feel old but that’s 25 years ago. I would worry more if Montana had turned into an ISIS-like dystopian recruiting all these dumbasses to gather from around the world to make a super Pope or something.

That's the first time I've heard SPL isn't reputable. Anyway, it's not an opinion piece, it's just a list of violent events. If you find one that's not true, please say so.

The article is a record of right-wing violence, which are due to strains of white supremacy (often Christian supremacy as well), going up to 2019. So Islam is far from exceptional when it comes to ideologies prone to violence.

You're not one of those people who dismiss everything that disagrees with them as "fake news", are you?

So if Islam is not the only ideology that can turn violent, then why do people like to focus on it so much and act like it's the number one threat to the world that's flying under our radar? And people ignore the fact that US activity in Muslim countries has been so barbaric, which is obviously going to make people angry.

This is why people talk about Islamophobia, because the fixation goes beyond logic.

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#23

Post by maldusiecle »

prepend wrote: post #12
noahth wrote: post #9

As a fan of Fisher, it's interesting to read an open-minded review of his work from someone on the right. But the bit about Islam can't be left unchallenged. The reviewer says: >>> I would not claim that Islam is monolithically malign, of course, but someone less constrained by their unconscious sense of ideological appropriateness would ask why interpretations of the faith lead people towards evangelistic violence a…

You are right that any philosophy can be distorted and made horrific. It’s kind of like how even lots of water can be poisonous if drank in sufficient quantities. It’s hard for me to bring up a topic like this without being lumped into straw man town of equating “some religions tend to have more violently dangerous people, as data like the pew opinions show” with “some religions are universally bad and racism is ok.”…

The idea that evangelical Christians are about as dangerous as the "followers of Eris" seems like quite a stretch. I don't see Discordians bombing abortion clinics.

Even as recently as the 80s, when The Last Tempation of Jesus Christ was released, it was banned in several countries (and is still banned in several) for its "blasphemous" content. The producers were worried that people would bomb theaters. The idea that Islam is uniquely censorious or intolerant of "blasphemy" is ahistorical, in my opinion.

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#24

Post by ordinaryradical »

YorickPeterse wrote: post #21
noahth wrote: post #9

As a fan of Fisher, it's interesting to read an open-minded review of his work from someone on the right. But the bit about Islam can't be left unchallenged. The reviewer says: >>> I would not claim that Islam is monolithically malign, of course, but someone less constrained by their unconscious sense of ideological appropriateness would ask why interpretations of the faith lead people towards evangelistic violence a…

I think a big difference between Christianity and Islam is that in the west Christianity has been around (or at least more dominant) much longer. I think this has two effects: 1. People are more used to it, and likely less aware of the flaws it has (or might have, as this is in the eye of the beholder). This may lead to people to make claim X, Y, Z about Islam, forgetting that this may have applied in the past (or st…

2. Is a complete inversion of history. “Western ways” were derived from Christian values, not the other way around. The value of charity, the importance of justice, care for the poor, days of rest and of work, the value of children—all of these are not things the West valued or understood in the same way prior to Christianity. The concept of “the West” is inextricable from Christian values and the evolutions of the reading and interpretation of its texts.

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#25

Post by musik »

noahth wrote: post #9

As a fan of Fisher, it's interesting to read an open-minded review of his work from someone on the right. But the bit about Islam can't be left unchallenged. The reviewer says: >>> I would not claim that Islam is monolithically malign, of course, but someone less constrained by their unconscious sense of ideological appropriateness would ask why interpretations of the faith lead people towards evangelistic violence a…

   we still have Christians practicing 
   evangelistic violence
Did you not notice the terms "so much more"?

That sounds like a quantitative argument, not a qualitative one. Can I invite you to reflect on how to refute/confirm quantitative arguments, and then to consult the quantitative distribution of violence, in, say, the last 100 years, of Christians, Bahais, Shiks, Bhuddists, or Zoroastrians and Islam.

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#26

Post by musik »

msla wrote: post #15
clydethefrog wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at political history, the jokingly made Fish Hook Theory is more valid than the Horse Shoe. https://i.redd.it/ipw1tkw2v06z.png

If you look at the history of Stalinism, the Khmer Rouge, and Maoism, the horseshoe theory begins to look appealing again, unless you consider Stalin to be Fascist.

It is quite popular among the hard left to handwave away the crimes of the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, by saying they are capitalists!

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#27

Post by cazum »

musik wrote: post #26
msla wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the history of Stalinism, the Khmer Rouge, and Maoism, the horseshoe theory begins to look appealing again, unless you consider Stalin to be Fascist.

It is quite popular among the hard left to handwave away the crimes of the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, by saying they are capitalists!

Really? I've never heard that before and I've spent a not insignificant portion of my life in hard left circles.

People will often say that Stalin's USSR was not communist, but was rather in a pre-communist phase. In the USSR this stage was known as the dictatorship of the proletariat, which according to Lenin, would eventually fade allowing a state-less, class-less society to flourish. Obviously they never got to that stage, but honestly even arguing this is semantics. Communism vs precommunism is a real time waster of a political debate, but I've never heard anyone describe any stage of the USSR as "capitalist". Perhaps state capitalism, if you really want to stretch that definition, but that's still a very different thing.

Generally lefties will distance themselves from Stalinism and Maoism by describing those forms as "authoritarian socialism", as opposed to "libertarian socialist" ideologies like what they had in socialist Catalonia, or Anarcho Communism as it's described in The Conquest of Bread.

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#28

Post by munificent »

nkurz wrote: post #7

The opening paragraph of this piece mentions (but does not link to) Fisher's 2013 piece "Exiting The Vampire Castle". If you haven't read it, you probably should: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vam... . It's a critique of the progressive liberal left from the traditional far left. Central to Fisher's thesis is that by emphasizing race and sex, class identity (which he feels is crucial) is ig…

That reminds me of this Twitter thread that put into words what I've been feeling vaguely for years:

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1083956746220195840

It wasn't until I read this that I realized how miserable being a liberal has felt over the past few years. Compared to the days of "Earth Day is every day" and "We are the world", being liberal today seems to be this never-ending race to see who can self-flagellate most intensely on social media.

I have to wonder how many people have been driven to the right simply because Trump and co. tell you that you are great and should feel great.

The left sure as hell use a little bit of that positivity.

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#29

Post by aabeshou »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #24
YorickPeterse wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big difference between Christianity and Islam is that in the west Christianity has been around (or at least more dominant) much longer. I think this has two effects: 1. People are more used to it, and likely less aware of the flaws it has (or might have, as this is in the eye of the beholder). This may lead to people to make claim X, Y, Z about Islam, forgetting that this may have applied in the past (or st…

2. Is a complete inversion of history. “Western ways” were derived from Christian values, not the other way around. The value of charity, the importance of justice, care for the poor, days of rest and of work, the value of children—all of these are not things the West valued or understood in the same way prior to Christianity. The concept of “the West” is inextricable from Christian values and the evolutions of the r…

those are inherent human values. maybe christianity rescued them for some people, maybe they just appropriated them. but christianity is not the source of compassion, nor love for children..

Re: The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

#30

Post by dang »

msla wrote: post #15
clydethefrog wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at political history, the jokingly made Fish Hook Theory is more valid than the Horse Shoe. https://i.redd.it/ipw1tkw2v06z.png

If you look at the history of Stalinism, the Khmer Rouge, and Maoism, the horseshoe theory begins to look appealing again, unless you consider Stalin to be Fascist.

Please keep this tedious trope off HN. Generic ideological arguments are predictable, therefore boring, therefore off topic here.

On HN, what's interesting are the diffs. Predictable content contains no information.

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