The brotherhood that forms among the oppressed and persecuted never lasts, British historian and art theorist Simon Elmer says in his new book, The Road to Fascism – For a Critique of the Global Biosecurity State (London 2022). He goes on to quote philosopher Hannah Arendt:
The humanity of the insulted and injured has never yet survived the hour of liberation by so much as a minute. This does not mean that it is insignificant, for in fact it makes insult and injury endurable; but it does mean that in political terms it is absolutely irrelevant (231).
What must replace brotherhood now, according to Elmer, as the worst oppression measures of the Covid era have subsided, at least temporarily, is friendship; but not in the modern sense though.
In The Road to Fascism, Elmer argues Western societies are now rapidly heading towards fascist totalitarianism, powered by the fourth industrial revolution and pushed on by oligarchs and bureaucratic power. After the fall of the Soviet Union we have become oblivious to the dangers of a totalitarianism that doesn‘t originate on the Left; the naïve liberalism of the past decades has blinded us to this danger. Elmer agrees with Hayek‘s warning in The Road to Serfdom, that the most dangerous kind of fascism is the one driven by international technocracies which could
easily exercise the most tyrannical and irresponsible power imaginable… And as there is scarcely anything which could not be justified by “technical necessities“ which no outsider could effectively question – or even by humanitarian arguments about the needs of some specially ill-favoured group which could not be helped in any other way – there is little possibility of controlling that power (143).
And let‘s be aware that here Hayek doesn’t even consider the possibility of the close collaboration between the international technocracies and monopolistic oligarchs we see in our times.
Elmer claims the support of the Left for the mandates and regulations of the biosecurity state are not based on its inherent authoritarianism as many on the Right believe, but rather on its “infiltration by the neoliberal ideologies of multiculturalism, political correctness, identity politics and, most recently, the orthodoxies of woke“ (147). Elmer rightly points out how “no-platforming, cancel culture, misogyny… policing of speech and opinion“ are not rooted in “politics of emancipation, class struggle or wealth distribution“; there is really nothing socialist, in the traditional sense, about those symptoms of totalitarian ideology.
This seems to stand in direct opposition to the generally accepted view, at least among those on the Right-wing, that woke is Left-wing in its essence, resulting from socialist infiltration of society in accordance with Dusche‘s (and Gramsci‘s) “long march through the institutions“. So, what is Elmer‘s reasoning here?
Quoting the Nazi motto of “Kraft durch Freude“ (strength through joy), in Elmer’s view it is the “dream of a unified people, the commemoration of fallen heroes“ that lies behind the fascist salute, behind the willing submission to the leader; it is on kitsch that the aesthetics of totalitarianism are based.
Elmer is not alone here. According to art theorist Monica Kjellman-Chapin, kitsch, the mechanical, easily consumed art, arousing fake sensations, can “easily be deployed by totalitarian regimes as a mechanism of control and manipulation… infused with propaganda“. In the words of Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch. The brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch.
Woke, Elmer says, is the modern equivalent of kitsch. Taking the knee, clapping for carers, masking up, and in general obeying nonsensical orders, for ‘the greater good’, or as is probably more common, only for the sake of appearances, is in its essence the same as being moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass. And this solidarity, which in the end is a fake solidarity, is also the driving force when the mob turns against those who do not comply, against the unvaccinated, against those who refuse to ‘take the knee’, against those who have the courage to upset and confuse the accepted narrative, for example a black man putting on a T-shirt with the slogan ‘White lives matter‘. For in its essence, woke, just like kitsch, is about exclusion; the most cruel are often the most sentimental of all.
Elmer points to how, during the lockdowns, protests that were in accordance with woke ideology were not only tolerated but applauded, while those who protested against the lockdowns and mandates to protect their livelihood were hunted down, fined or imprisoned. The reason for this, he says, is that woke presents no threat to the authorities; it is about a puritanical adherence to orthodoxies and rituals, it is anti-revolutionary, but “sees the market as the only framework for change” (120), and most importantly it provides an opportunity to enforce and further develop restrictions on free speech and personal freedom, a fundamental step on the road to fascism. “In short, by its facilitation of capitalism‘s construction of the totalitarianism of the Global Biosecurity State – woke is not liberal, and it certainly isn’t socialist: woke is fascist.“ (121)
One of the key characteristics of woke ideology is its utter disregard for reason; for rational thinking, and we see this perhaps most explicitly in the absurdities in the narrative around COVID-19. To the woke, all that matters is their own personal perception, subjective experience. But in a world where all meaning is private, there can be no meaning. A private language is impossible, Wittgenstein says, for its originator cannot understand it himself. In a more general sense, we may consider Hannah Arendt‘s definition of common sense as our common perception of the world and how this common perception is dependent on a common language, on common stories and on a common way of thinking; without those society really exists no more.
As Elmer points out, and as others, including Arendt, have done before him, atomisation is one of the key prerequisites for the sustenance of a totalitarian society. This is what Stalin understood when he proceeded to dissolve all free societies and clubs, even chess clubs weren’t spared; to truly exert totalitarian power you must isolate people from each other, remove their ability to form social bonds. This way woke is an immensely important cornerstone of the new fascist society Elmer fears is around the corner, not only its visible signs, such as mass compliance with mask mandates and lockdowns, but no less in the atomisation based on the denial of our common rationality, a direct consequence of the radical relativism that accepts nothing as valid except individual subjective experience. And, as societal change driven by the people, revolutionary or not, is based on the ability to come together, to discuss ideas and to plan actions, we see how destructive it is to any such endeavours, whether Left-wing or Right-wing; it is an antithesis to true political activity. And it goes without saying, that in a society governed by the radical relativity of woke ideology – if we can even call such a thing a society – there can be no law, and thus no human rights.
Elmer‘s discussion of woke ideology is only a part, though a central one, of his wide-ranging analysis of fascism and its foundations, and the signs of its imminent resurgence. He draws on Umberto Eco‘s characteristics of “eternal” fascism, provides a critical analysis of Hayek‘s definition of fascism, explains and clarifies Agamben‘s complex conceptual framework underpinning his view of the state of modern man as homo sacer – excluded, yet subject to absolute power – within the biosecurity state, dives into the technological development allowing constant surveillance by the authorities and concludes that, if nothing is done, we are headed towards a new type of fascist totalitarianism, from which there may be no escape. The fact that his analysis is based on a socialist, rather than a Right-wing perspective should truly enhance the importance of this book; it may provide a much-needed foundation for critical discussion of recent events among Left-wing intellectuals, at least those who still have an open mind.
Towards the end of his book, Elmer discusses the ancient Greek concept of friendship as a possible way out. To the ancient Greeks, he says, friendship among the citizens (philia) was fundamental to the well-being of the city-state (polis), and it is precisely on this that the idea of Western democracy is based. This concept of friendship is different from what we usually mean when we talk about friendship today. We see friendship as the intimacy we seek to avoid the alienation caused by the constant revelation of our private lives, Elmer says. Friendship is thus only present in private life and not in our public life as members of society and participants in political debate.
But with the ancient Greeks, the citizens were only united within the city state through constant conversation and debate. The essence of friendship lay in coming together and discussing the issues of society, not in personal communication and conversation about ourselves with those closest to us, but in a dialogue based on our common interests as citizens and participants in society. According to Elmer, it is this kind of friendship, the bond that forms between responsible active citizens, that can and should replace the brotherhood of those attacked by silencing, censorship, confinement and other methods of oppression. In short, Elmer urges us to take seriously our responsibility as citizens, instead of being consumers only, caring nothing for politics and society; that we come together again in the public square, in the agora, to debate ideas, to develop our views through rational dialogue, but always on the basis of friendship, in the ancient Greek sense.
Thorsteinn Siglaugsson is an economist, consultant and writer based in Iceland. This post first appeared on his Substack page, which you can subscribe to here.
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“Techno-con”. Neat phrase. I’m going to use that. It will take off.
Because Clown World logic dictates that the likes of a total non-expert ( and extremely bloody irritating, while I’m at it ) called Greta gets to have all the limelight and spout all the blatant lies but on her elitist platform she will remain, because she’s talking complete garbage but is pro-narrative.
And speaking of the Peta Pan of the Garbage Pail Kid world and bloody annoying people, does anybody have photo evidence of her or her eco nutter acolytes ever getting their hands dirty? Because if any of them ever did anything useful to help the environment, as opposed to gluing themselves to things, walking like zombies in the road or chucking orange stuff everywhere, I might be a tad less scathing. People should be judged by their actions, after all;
https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1685046948833673216
Hello, Westminster….Mr Sunak…..Parliament…….Uncle Tom Cobley……
‘I can confidently say there is no real climate crisis and that climate change does not cause extreme weather events.’
Dr J. F. Clauser
‘Dr. John F. Clauser, born 1942, is an American theoretical and experimental physicist known for contributions to the foundations of quantum mechanics. Clauser was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger, “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”.
Oh!
‘In conclusion on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.’
‘A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming’ The European Physical Journal +, Jan 2022
Off-topic due to there being no articles about jabs today:
This new peer-reviewed study is significant because it demonstrates increased mortality in children <5yrs the more vaccinations they have. Conclusion;
”There are statistically significant positive correlations between neonatal, infant, and under age five mortality rates of developed nations and the number of early childhood vaccine doses that are routinely given. When developed nations require two versus zero neonatal vaccine doses, or many versus fewer infant vaccine doses, our study suggests there may be unintended consequences that increase all-cause mortality. Further investigations of the hypotheses generated by this study are recommended to confirm that current vaccination schedules are achieving their intended objectives.”
https://www.cureus.com/articles/164423-neonatal-infant-and-under-age-five-vaccine-doses-routinely-given-in-developed-nations-and-their-association-with-mortality-rates#!/
Jikky has a good thread about it here with some additional information;
https://twitter.com/Jikkyleaks/status/1685468279077244930
Thanks for the information.
Neil Z. Miller, referred to in the links also has a very interesting book – “Miller’s Review of Critical Vaccine Studies”.
Well worth a read.
Of course Obama live by the ocean, (or should that be oceans?) despite his warnings of the sea rising
Cancelled by the IMF.. now there’s a surprise.. another nasty little cabal of bankers who are responsible for sucking the life blood out of so many third world countries with their unpayable debt, and plunging them into despicable levels of poverty..
Anybody who believes the IMF are the slightest bit interested in ‘saving’ the planet needs a size 10 boot five lace-holes up their jacksy..
LOL! What the hell does he know? Is he famous? Is he on the telly?
Well then…proof positive, the ‘science is settled’ according to the omniscient BBC…
we have our true, bona fide Commander in Chief Greta, who absolutely knows better and we need to be listening to her!
If Clauser is cancelled then all of science needs cancelling as well because a “climate crisis” is NOT supported by any science.—— In matters of science you question EVERYTHING. But the thing that is different about climate science is that there is no way to conduct experiments. There maybe agreement about some basic facts, such as the earth has warmed in the last 150 years, and that CO2 has contributed in some way to that. But there are also serious doubts and uncertainties. (1) How much can the climate expect to change as a result of us adding CO2 to the atmosphere and (2) Is this dangerous? There is also the question over the role of natural variability of the climate compared to assumed changes caused by CO2. But assumptions are NOT science. Speculations about the effect CO2 will have on temperature and climate should be discussed and debated, and when there is this determination to halt any discussion and silence those asking pertinent questions then we are no longer dealing with science. But many on this website will know that already. Science is all the time sold to the public on this issue as FACT. No it isn’t. It is a PROCESS. ———- Yesterday on GB News we had the usual little debate with invited guests. One of those guests in a discussion about ULEZ was the Meteorologist Jim Dale. I found it astonishing that he could still be harping on about the manufactured consensus, the so called 97% of scientists all apparently agree on something. But in this so called consensus, what were the scientists asked, and what were there replies? 97% consensus of scientists is ABSURD. As Judith Curry has pointed out Consensus is NOT a proxy for truth. Consensus stops questions from being asked and investigations taking place. Consensus is also just an appeal to authority, but science is not a dictatorship where people with views not consistent with the political consensus masquerading as scientific truth are outlawed, ostracised and silenced, and those who question dogma are delegitimised. Is this what science has become? Clauser is certainly finding that out, and so are everyone else who challenges climate tyranny.
If they cancel an opposing or different point-of-view it means they don’t have the data to defend their own viewpoint.
They know their opinion will not stand up to scrutiny.