Re: [ox-en] The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage
- From: Christian Siefkes <christian siefkes.net>
- Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:05:09 +0100
Dmytri Kleiner wrote:
Further, employing the metaphor of a parasite to describe the rentier
class is ubiquitous in all tendencies of leftist writing.
If this was true, it would be a reason to leave the left once and forever.
Mercifully, it's not true. Sadly, there are _some_ tendencies of the
so-called left for which it is indeed true, which is a disquieting and
depressing fact all by itself and shows the decline of critical,
emancipatory thinking characteristic for some parts of the left.
It is a good thing to point out to these parts of the "left" that their
thinking (though they probably mean no harm) is _structurally_ identical to
the most right-wing thinking that ever existed, so I don't think anybody
should be blamed for doing just that.
The "argument" to equate people with animals -- and not just any animals,
but parasites or vermin -- is one of the core tenets (if not _the_ core
tenet) of modern anti-Semitism. (Note that parasites and vermin are usually
considered harmful and that is it usually considered normal to kill them
when you encounter them. This is not at all incidental, but the reason that
makes this equation so attractive for anti-Semites in the first place.)
In _actual_ anti-Semitism, it is Jews who are equated in this way (though
not necessarily explicitly so -- euphemistic references to "Zionists",
"people with money", or "the East Coast" might already be enough). In
_structural_ anti-Semitism, the people equated are not Jews, but the rest of
the "argument" stays the same. That's why it's called _structural_
anti-Semitism -- "structural anti-Semitism" is NOT anti-Semitism at all, but
it uses the same argument structure, and hence can easily be understood in
the same way.
Now, I'm quite confident that neither Matteo nor Dmytri have anything
against Jews, and that they don't want to eliminate anybody. It is only the
_structural_ similarity of Matteo's argument with the core tenet of
anti-Semitism that we are complaining about, but this structural similarity
is already worrying enough. So, please just throw your "parasite metaphor"
out of the window, and everyone will be happy and we will again be able to
focus on actual arguments (if any).
Regards
Christian
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If the meanings of "true" and "false" were switched, then this sentence
would not be false.