Promethean with Dionysian proclivities. Conservative Marxist. Red Devil. Words in @unherd @AreoMagazine @SublationMag
I drink your milkshake!
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Dec 18, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Let's not do this again.
To state the obvious, Nazi antisemitism & Zionism are mutually incompatible. The Nazis thought the Yishuv would become a locus for 'world Jewry' (just as the US & USSR were 'Jewish states' in their imagination). Thus, it had to be destroyed.
The obvious reason why the Nazi variant of antisemitism was incompatible with Zionism (as opposed to other antisemitic nationalisms where there was some level of a symbiotic relationship) was because the Nazis didn't want expulsion; they wanted the annihilation of all Jews.
Jun 13, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Fascism & the 1930s are invoked a lot, but there's still a big line of thought that holds that fascism was an irrational excess of democracy. "Beware of the masses! Don't give them too much power, or else. We need 'reasonable' constraints on democracy to prevent another Hitler."
We focus, almost in a state of fascination, on the exterior signifiers of fascist movements - goosestepping, torch marches, paramilitary thuggishness - and less on its interior logic, which stemmed from a deeply elitist, aristocratic even & anti-democratic line of thought.
Sep 22, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Tankie & "ML" grumbling about "colour revolutions" is because they are proof of their obsolescence. They can't grasp how these uprisings are pro-democratic, but not necessarily anti-capitalist (let alone socialist), so they resort to conspiracism to try to explain them.
So, in their universe, "colour revolutions" affirm the ruling ideology, especially, as is often the case, they are against regimes that are 'official' enemies of the US. I also suspect some jealousy: that these revolutions are usurping their moribund radicalism.
Sep 30, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The debate on human nature is usually a narrow clash between biology & culture & what relative weight should be attached to one over the other. For some humans are primarily defined by our biological & evolutionary endowment; others emphasise cultural upbringing & environment.
But what is lost in this debate is the sense of human agency: of humans as rational, social beings with the ability to transform themselves, nature & society through their own reason and activity. Humans, unlike animals, are historical beings who make their own history.
Apr 3, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I've never been good at doing the 'identity' thing. Some people can do it flawlessly. I just can't do it. I would look like a fool and feel fraudulent if I tried. Despite technically belonging to multiple tribes, homelands & imaginary communities, I've always felt out of place.
Without making you endure some boring existential soliloquy, despite feeling 'Out of Place' (to borrow the title of Edward Said's memoir) with all the crippling doubt, angst & 'rootlessness', I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't want to be fully 'at ease' with the world.
Jun 9, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The first modern revolutionary. An unofficial founding father of America (he coined the phrase "The United States of America"). Had a hand in the French revolution & defended it against Burke, and was an inspiration to English radicals & republicans.
One of my favourite Paine quotes is from The American Crisis:
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly."
Jun 11, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Everyone professes to love Orwell, or at least the version
Orwell they see. But this wasn't always the case. There was a time when he wasn't that well known and actually not that popular, particularly on the Left.
One reason I admire Orwell is because I think he would follow an argument to its full conclusion so long as it was arrived at honestly & honourably. Even if he was uncomfortable with it, or it might offend his friends he would stick by it. Sounds easy but its hard to practice.
Jun 1, 2018 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD: In the identity politics debate there are 3 memes that I hear often: 1. that all politics is identity politics 2. critics of so called "identity politics" ignore issues of marginalised groups and 3. they perpetuate a white male chauvinist worldview.
It's flawed because it ignores the fact that there have been many critiques of identity politics by non-whites, many of whom have been deeply involved in struggles against racism, injustice and colonial oppression.
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