Difference is required to sell, because it doesn’t make sense to buy the same information twice. This is true in entertainment, business, social life, and also in politics, to some degree.
“to some degree” is doing a lot of work here because it absolutely makes sense to sell the same information twice. Selling the same info twice reduces the cost of producing information since you don’t have to constantly produce something new. You can talk about the contradiction of that cost-saving pressure with the desire for novelty from customers, but difference is not a requirement to sell.
He’s so different from the other politicians that an unemployed meth addict from Oklahoma could look at him and think: “Trump is so different than the other politicians and they are so different from me that this guy must be really exactly like me”.
???
Analysts won’t fail to remind you that Trump can do this because his interests align with the interests of Capital, or because something something “Fascism is Capitalism’s last resort”. They would be focusing on the Difference, missing the Alterity completely.
Right. So here is the entire thing. This is not theory. This is someone trying craft a take. Like someone who has nothing original to contribute to the internet discourse industry and is fishing for a new spin on the old “neoliberalism hellscape” brand from 10 years ago. It’s extremely contrived because the author is grasping for that new hook which sets them apart from previous and current takesmiths.
The rest can be summarized: Here is an academic distinction between two types of progressives (which encompasses all of the left for some reason). There are the older, stuffy, monolithic Manichean leftists. They are overly concerned with purity tests and have too small of a tent. That leads to them being easily counted by capital. Then there is the cool, innovative, stochastic Augustinian Left. They are wink-elbow nudge leftists who just focus on results and are open to new forms of action. They get better results because of that. Example? A CFO who leaks company information to expose anti-labor practices is Augustinian.
The solution is to stop outwardly being a leftist because being a leftist isn’t cool. What is cool is getting a job as a middle-manager and then funding a network of eco-terrorists. Sounds cool? Well, never ask yourself why aren’t middle managers doing that. Why aren’t the governments and corporations full of leftists who are doing cool covert politics? Does it have something to do with a middle manager having a stake in the status quo because funding eco-terrorism would possibly destabilize the system they rely on? Nah, see, that’s uncool boring Manichean shit. That’s why you’re no fun at parties.
This whole blog post is an affront to any theory. And if you think it’s just shitting on Marxism, they invoke Anarchism too.
“to some degree” is doing a lot of work here because it absolutely makes sense to sell the same information twice. Selling the same info twice reduces the cost of producing information since you don’t have to constantly produce something new. You can talk about the contradiction of that cost-saving pressure with the desire for novelty from customers, but difference is not a requirement to sell.
???
Right. So here is the entire thing. This is not theory. This is someone trying craft a take. Like someone who has nothing original to contribute to the internet discourse industry and is fishing for a new spin on the old “neoliberalism hellscape” brand from 10 years ago. It’s extremely contrived because the author is grasping for that new hook which sets them apart from previous and current takesmiths.
The rest can be summarized: Here is an academic distinction between two types of progressives (which encompasses all of the left for some reason). There are the older, stuffy, monolithic Manichean leftists. They are overly concerned with purity tests and have too small of a tent. That leads to them being easily counted by capital. Then there is the cool, innovative, stochastic Augustinian Left. They are wink-elbow nudge leftists who just focus on results and are open to new forms of action. They get better results because of that. Example? A CFO who leaks company information to expose anti-labor practices is Augustinian.
The solution is to stop outwardly being a leftist because being a leftist isn’t cool. What is cool is getting a job as a middle-manager and then funding a network of eco-terrorists. Sounds cool? Well, never ask yourself why aren’t middle managers doing that. Why aren’t the governments and corporations full of leftists who are doing cool covert politics? Does it have something to do with a middle manager having a stake in the status quo because funding eco-terrorism would possibly destabilize the system they rely on? Nah, see, that’s uncool boring Manichean shit. That’s why you’re no fun at parties.
This whole blog post is an affront to any theory. And if you think it’s just shitting on Marxism, they invoke Anarchism too.