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Re: [ox-en] The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage



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I guess this must be a particular thing for a German list; and for me, it is
a false debate, with the potential to do Oekonux a lot of harm. Obviously
different thought streams will have structures in common, and when you point
that out, in terms of anti-semitic structures or concepts used by fascism,
it should be done with extreme caution.

For me it is entirely understandable that radical people, particularly at
moments of frustration, will occasionally vent particularly emotionally
charged antagonistic thoughts, which may have superficial similarities with
other forms of thought, but what can be an element of momentary outrage in
some, is fully systematized and racialized in the extreme right wing, so
that a qualitative jump occurs, as the extreme is made the norm.

Better would have to focus on the actual arguments made by Matteo. It should
have been a debate between the various families of the left, some of which
can be found objectionable, without resort to the brush of association.

Let's put these references to rest.

Michel



On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 1:05 AM, Christian Siefkes <christian siefkes.net>
wrote:

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

--
|-------- Dr. Christian Siefkes --------- christian siefkes.net ---------
| Homepage: http://www.siefkes.net/    |    Blog: http://www.keimform.de/
| Peer Production in the Physical World:       http://www.peerconomy.org/
|------------------------------------------ OpenPGP Key ID: 0x346452D8 --
If the meanings of "true" and "false" were switched, then this sentence
would not be false.




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