Postmodern fascism seeks to attach itself to the realities of post-Fordist labour cooperation, and seeks at the same time to express some of its essence in a form that is turned on its head. In the same way the old fascism mimicked the mass organisational forms of socialism and attempted to transfer the proletariat's impulse toward collectivity into nationalism (national socialism or the Fordist constitution), so postmodern fascism seeks to discover the communist needs of the post-Fordist masses and transform them, gradually, into a cult of differences, the pursuit of individual differences, and the search for identity - all within a project of creating overriding despotic hierarchies aimed at constantly, relentlessly, pitting differences, singularities, identities, and individualities one against the other. Whereas communism is respect for and synthesis of singularities, and as such desired by all those who love peace, the new fascism (as an expression of the financial command of international capital) would produce a war of all against all; it would create religiosity and wars of religion, nationalism and wars of nations, corporative egos and economic wars. (Constituent Republic, in Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt (eds) Radical Thought in Italy, p.216)
If you're unfamiliar with Negri's work, these three posts are as good a place as any for an introduction:
Beyond Class and Identity Politics
Class Struggle and the Common
Altermodernity and the Common
5 comments:
Have we gone through the looking glass here? Who exactly is it who is creating "a cult of differences, the pursuit of individual differences, and the search for identity - all within a project of creating overriding despotic hierarchies aimed at constantly, relentlessly, pitting differences, singularities, identities, and individualities one against the other"? Who is it who defines people by their given label and then prescribes different entitlements based on that given identity? Who is it who uses a term "white privilege" to limit the ability of individuals to argue their case based on their skin colour and regardless of any other features?
As a sequence of events with respect to Laurence Fox's appearance on the telly recently, which came first, his denunciation of a person of colours experience at the hands of the legacy media as being "not racist", or the accusation that he could only say this from a position of "white privilege"?
Or, to put it another way, had he not decided that he knew better than a POC that what the POC was experiencing was definitely "not racist" maybe the "white privilege" term would not have been applied.
But then, I suppose, if L Fox was a bit less forthright in articulating that what others were experiencing wasn't actually what they were experiencing (because obviously he would know wouldn't he) then he would not have been booked to appear on Question Time.
@ Gulliver Foyle so how wide does this right to define the truth of your own experience go? If I, a white man, apply for a job and don't get it, can I claim that I've experienced racism and sexism? Can I claim regional discrimination? Should I expect that my diagnosis should be universally accepted without challenge?
Plenty of people apply for jobs and dont get them. What evidence is there that one didn't get the job because of bias against pale males, Dipper?
"What evidence is there that one didn't get the job because of bias against pale males, Dipper?"
This is a bit disingenuous. There is a clear trend, which I happen to think is necessary, toward positive discrimination, where either women, certain ethnic groups etc are favoured above those groups that are perceived as not being discriminated against.
The problem with this is that is causes resentment, particularly among working class men, who face atrocious levels of discrimination on a daily basis and this I believe is one explanation for the election of charlatans like trump and Johnson.
Every time a feminist claims Clare Balding is hard done to another working class voter is sent into the arms of the right wing.
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