tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post5076223458136569859..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Corbynism, Marxism, and ConspiracyPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-84310426807624975502018-03-31T13:39:10.105+01:002018-03-31T13:39:10.105+01:00Using this outlet, did you hear your former employ...Using this outlet, did you hear your former employer on BBC Radio 4 Any Questions last night? He said he was now a "floating voter" would have backed Macron were he French and championed David Miliband as the King over the water for any new Centre Party.Walsiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14287542481842382567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-46137400976860131752018-03-31T07:33:03.233+01:002018-03-31T07:33:03.233+01:00Really interesting article. You could do with brea...Really interesting article. You could do with breaking sections of it down into smaller paragraphs though Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01576093884011136306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-39353348202317863372018-03-30T14:02:13.072+01:002018-03-30T14:02:13.072+01:00The notion (Matt’s, as I understand it) that descr...The notion (Matt’s, as I understand it) that describing the system as rigged promotes conspiracy thinking is bizarre when Marxist analysis is precisely about structural bias, surely?! At the same time, in the ‘real world’ (cringe) structures don’t exist without agents, actors and, indeed, conspiracies: cartels, etc.Markhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02300517838096556140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-58817428117531566332018-03-30T12:34:36.763+01:002018-03-30T12:34:36.763+01:00This is a great analysis of the shoddy work of Mat...This is a great analysis of the shoddy work of Matt. His reply above, especially shallow comments such as this,'I'm not sure how you can deny that Corbyn's entire programme is centered around the trope of the 'rigged system.' May point towards the fact that maybe he's just not a great thinker. I mean you clearly stated in this article the Bennite roots of Corbyn's thought and all that comes with, so to then reduce his whole programme to rhetoric around a 'rigged system' is ridiculously reductive.<br /><br />This is just one point of weakness in the many you point out. Great job.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15625553557358157998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-60300396878099663312018-03-30T12:14:56.681+01:002018-03-30T12:14:56.681+01:00Bolton's analysis is essentially correct, in t...Bolton's analysis is essentially correct, in that Corbyn and the Labour Left do over-personalise many of the traits of capitalism and therefore tend towards conspiracy theories and over-simplification.<br /><br />Yet this analysis needs to be placed in a context where all political tendencies are guilty. Conspiracy theories peddled for decades about the EU as an institution were instrumental in facilitating Brexit, while remainers whine about Corbyn's 'secret' support for the leave campaign and centrists obsess about Trump, Putin and Cambridge Analytica. No party or political group displays any real intellectual rigour or coherent ideology. Hypocrisy is absolutely rife in society and the media, from Islamphobes and Ian Paisley Jnr protesting against Labour's anti-Semitism to ex-cricketers like Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen treating Australia's ball-tampering like some kind of crime against humanity.<br /><br />By all means highlight the problems of 'Corbynism', but by no means should anyone pretend that they don't have much wider roots in the whole present-day political and media culture. Ben Philliskirknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-6571299840581727372018-03-30T09:13:56.086+01:002018-03-30T09:13:56.086+01:00(2/2):
d) Corbyn is absolutely central to the STW...(2/2):<br /><br />d) Corbyn is absolutely central to the STW 'groupthink' that you rightly criticise. 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' has shaped his politics for decades, which leads to an inability to make political distinctions when it comes to Palestianian internal politics for example - hence all the 'hamas are a force for social justice' stuff, which I'm afraid I fundamentally disagree with. There is mountains of evidence for Corbyn's personal prediliction for conspiracy thinking, whether its to do with 9/11 or the death of Bin Laden. I don't think it is at all irrelevant when it comes to the current situation. I disagree with your characterisation of the debate over israel in the uk, i think there's far more 'israel lobby pulling the strings' stuff than you're letting on.<br /><br />e) we will have to agree to disagree on the important of Postone's work.<br /><br />f) you put your finger on something very important - the rising tide of conspiratorial thinking across the political spectrum. This is precisely why I think the way that Corbynism frames things is potentially so dangerous. As we said in the piece, talking about a 'rigged system' is politically ambigious at best. There are real risks here that Corbynism actually contributes to and intensifies reactionary worldviews, rather than challenges them - particularly if the grand promises it makes fail to come to fruition.<br /><br />g) finally, i found the stuff about my 'establishment backers', my 'mates in Progress', or my desire to 'get noticed' a bit weird. I've seen other people online accuse me of writing this stuff for money, for careerist reasons etc etc. Given i've written a grand total of four articles about Corbynism in three years, two on a personal blog and the others with no payment (and none in the run up to the election, in which i campaigned for labour locally), it seems like a singularly unsuccessful way to build a career. In fact, if i was trying to build a career in left academia/writing, a far better bet would to be leap upon the accelerationist post-work bandwagon, not draw the ire of an increasingly dominant (and i have to say, increasingly authoritarian and agressive) 'movement.' I don't mind people taking the arguments apart, that's fine and I've benefitted from previous criticism. I do mind the ad hominem stuff, although its prevelance amongst the Corbynist milieu does go someway to proving the personalisation thesis.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-89586646505313079562018-03-30T09:13:01.110+01:002018-03-30T09:13:01.110+01:00Phil - a few points to make here (1/2):
a) fair e...Phil - a few points to make here (1/2):<br /><br />a) fair enough to take another pop at my original blogpost, although you've mischaracterised it in the same way as you did first time around. But I quite agree that the whole 'marxist' thing (which I didn't start incidentally, i have owen jones to thank for that honour) was unfortunate with regard to that post, as I did, as you say, refer to some marxian terminology in a loose and tbh pointless way. I tried to correct it in the subsequent blog post, but i accept the point there. More than that though, the main problem with that post was that the things I thought spelled disaster for Corbynism - Brexit and the split in the PLP - actually proved to be his saving grace. Brexit because it polarised the electorate to an unprecedented extent and destroyed the arguments for austerity at a stroke, and the leadership challenge because it motivated Corbyn's support in a way that had not been seen at all prior to the so-called 'coup'.<br /><br />b) I'm not sure how you can deny that Corbyn's entire programme is centered around the trope of the 'rigged system.' He uses it in virtually every speech. You can disagree whether the use of that framing contributes to conspiratorial thinking or not, but i don't see how you can pretend there's 'no evidence' of him using it.<br /><br />c) I would argue that Bennism is actually based on the personalisation of social relations - i'm particuarly thinking about Ralph Miliband's theory of the state etc - which leads to a misrecognition of the character of capitalism, a misrecognition that imo explains what i regard as the nationalist protectionism trajectory of Corbynism. But I'll save the rest of that for the book you won't read!<br /><br />Mattnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-50596557867930617682018-03-30T00:44:07.690+01:002018-03-30T00:44:07.690+01:00What's the difference between the hard left an...What's the difference between the hard left and the far left? <br /><br />I've noticed this too, although your articulation of it is much better than anything I've managed so far. It is like large parts of the Corbyn-sceptic Labour world see a different reality to the rest of us. I don't understand entirely why, except for the fact they don't understand what has changed or possess the courage and intellectual tools to begin. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-49027885425448036342018-03-30T00:03:03.663+01:002018-03-30T00:03:03.663+01:00The Left as a whole, and not just the far Left, ha...The Left as a whole, and not just the far Left, has the same volume of classic old-fashioned antisemitism as everyone else. About 4%, according to the research, just like the rest of the British population. (Far right is higher)<br /><br />However, the left and far left is much more critical of Israel than the rest of the population. However, the research attempts to distinguish between antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment as two distinct phenomena. <br /><br />There are some very interesting graphs in the report. <br />jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00428224075238635085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-64923238027631943802018-03-29T23:56:46.482+01:002018-03-29T23:56:46.482+01:00http://www.jpr.org.uk/publication?id=9993
"T...http://www.jpr.org.uk/publication?id=9993<br /><br />"This study, supported by the Community Security Trust, takes an in-depth look at attitudes towards Jews and Israel among the population of Great Britain, both across society as a whole, and in key subgroups within the population, notably the far-left, the far-right, Christians and Muslims.<br /><br />"It introduces the concept of the ‘elastic view’ of antisemitism, arguing that as antisemitism is an attitude, it exists at different scales and levels of intensity. Thus no single figure can capture the level of antisemitism in society, and all figures need to be carefully explained and understood.<br /><br />"It finds that only a small proportion of British adults can be categorised as ‘hard-core’ antisemites – approximately 2% – yet antisemitic ideas can be found at varying degrees of intensity across 30% of British society. Whilst this categorically does not mean that 30% of the British population is antisemitic, it does demonstrate the outer boundary of the extent to which antisemitic ideas live and breathe in British society. As such, it goes some way towards explaining why British Jews appear to be so concerned about antisemitism, as the likelihood of them encountering an antisemitic idea is much higher than that suggested by simple measures of antisemitic individuals. In this way, the research draws an important distinction between ‘counting antisemites’ and ‘measuring antisemitism’ – the counts for each are very different from one another, and have important implications for how one tackles antisemitism going forward.<br /><br />"The research finds that levels of anti-Israelism are considerably higher than levels of anti-Jewish feeling, and that the two attitudes exist both independently of one another and separately. However, the research also demonstrates that the greater the intensity of anti-Israel attitude, the more likely it is to be accompanied by antisemitic attitudes as well.<br /><br />"Looking at subgroups within the population, the report finds that levels of antisemitism and anti-Israelism among Christians are no different from those found across society as a whole, but among Muslims they are considerably higher on both counts. On the political spectrum, levels of antisemitism are found to be highest among the far-right, and levels of anti-Israelism are heightened across all parts of the left-wing, but particularly on the far-left. In all cases, the higher the level of anti-Israelism, the more likely it is to be accompanied by antisemitism. Yet, importantly, most of the antisemitism found in British society exists outside of these three groups – the far-left, far-right and Muslims; even at its most heightened levels of intensity, only about 15% of it can be accounted for by them."jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00428224075238635085noreply@blogger.com