Episode Eight
Editorial: Too many ends
I have always been ambivalent about the end of the world. I grew up around Christians who were really into it and there was even a local publishing house that pushed a book called The Late Great Planet Earth that cited an “increase in the frequency of famines, wars and earthquakes, as major events just prior to the end of the world. He also foretold a Soviet invasion of Israel (War of Gog and Magog). Lindsey also predicted that the European Economic Community, which preceded the European Union, was destined (according to Biblical prophecy) to become a “United States of Europe”, which in turn he says is destined to become a “Revived Roman Empire” ruled by the Antichrist.” Mostly it just seemed to want to scare people and create a genre. I was too young.
I was old enough for the HBO movie Nostradamus, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow – ‘Narrated By Orson Welles’ which puncuated end of the world thinking for me but I still imagine the man in the blue turban planning for the big day. Perhaps Will Smith in the live action version of Aladdin?
Of course the left has it’s own version of this eschatology, several really. We focus on the collapse-ists, or perhaps a great revolution, but many political ideologies focus a great deal of their energy on a kind of end of the world but secular and positive. Ultra left communists, most revolutionaries, and even most radical pre-democrats see a great change ahead. They see history as a story so epic, yet so simple, that it has a beginning, middle and end. Perhaps that could even be the difference between the left and post-left, instead of studying for the end of the world, the post left lives in the world that exists. Perhaps I’m being too generous.
This week we will try to have an conversation about the end of the world. Which end of the world? You decide. It could be that the end of the world will be due to climate change or a third world war. It could the end of insects (and therefore agriculture as we know it) or the end of arable land due to it having blown away. The world, or the human centric world, or the world meaning the petro-economy, or civilization as we know it may end. Will it be in our life time? Will it be with a whimper or a bang? What assumptions do we make, every day, that the world will be here tomorrow? Will it?
Having three people this week was an amusing distraction. Some interesting questions were raised. (Which is what you wanted anyway.) I can now see a new feature — What are the hosts wearing? 🙂
Thought there would be more calls on such an interesting topic. But I guess they huddle instead on the IRC 🙂 But good discussions.
And didn’t Nostradamus predict Anarchy Bang would happen? 🙂 Or was it Anarchy Bong ?
***Multiple discussions on a given topic shall happen weekly. It shall be a good time.***
What about desertion or exodus? I don’t believe collapse or revolution is possible in the 1st world.
Oddly enough I see anarchist on Reddit telling other anarchist to vote for Bernie and this Green New Deal garbage.
My personal opinion is that the Green New Deal is another way of saving capitalism just as the New Deal was during the FDR administration.
The anarchist movement in the US seems more nationalistic than anything else. I personally believe we need a new trajectory.
I think you are spot on wrt GND. Could you say more about your last paragraph?
Sure. Let me preface this by saying this is not all anarchist. I notice a sharp difference between anarchist on social media and anarchist in the real world.
The emphasis is always the same. “We must save lives”, “we must protect the marginalized, POC, and the LGBTQ+”. It’s always these rallying cries that seem to draw anarchist back into state and capital through the ideology of liberal democracy.
Maybe a better word would be neo nationalist. It’s this hardcore emphasis that the only people that matter only reside within our borders and we must use indirect action to protect these groups. I find this dangerous because there groups are being exploited and used as leverage on a meta scale to create new legislation and also new categories and niche markets. It’s everywhere if you look.
Our analysis tends to stop at our borders. We tend to forget that state and capital have outsourced everything. We outsource our pollution, we outsource our labor, and we outsource our oppression. Within our borders it’s my personal option that the groups I mentioned above are at a rapid rate begging absorbed by state and capital.
That’s the nationalism I am speaking of. This total disregard of actual oppression occurring in third world countries on the behalf of the first world.
Maybe we can call this 1st world neo nationalism.
I also want to add that the goal of anarchist should be to empower these groups and allow for full expression of all individuals.
Instead we want state and capital protect these groups. To protect something is in a way to say you own that thing. Maybe this is the Stirner in me. That’s what I see happening.
I think in 50 years anarchist will look back at these groups and see that they were just exploited for political ends.
In other words what is inherently anachistic about these groups.