The growing trend of Third Worldism on the internet is funny. On one hand, its adherents come off as deeply nihilistic and militant, but on the other, they resort right back to moralism and reluctance to engage in actions of any kind.
This appears whenever a critique of their much-underdeveloped ideology poses the question on all of our minds: "If Third Worldism is correct, and it's impossible for a successful and legitimate socialist revolution to occur in the First World, what do we, as First Worlders, do?" The overarching idea is, the West (or "First World") has lost its chances for revolution, or was never revolutionary to begin with. Revolution in the so-called "First World" is impossible, or, if it were to occur, would only shine as a beacon of social imperialism and Western chauvinism to nations that are much more in need of one.
The Third Worldist sees zero space for any kind of resistance in the "First World". When workers in the "First World" go on strike for higher wages, the workers in the "Third World" pay via higher rates of exploitation. But this isn't limited to the workplace. The "First Worlder" lives in a state of perpetual colonization through immersion in bourgeois ideology.
Everything a Westerner does furthers the colonial relationship between "First" and "Third" Worlds. We go to the store to buy mangoes grown in the Philippines and toothpaste made from minerals stolen from Mali - imperialism. We get prescribed modern medicine that comes from plants found in the Amazon - imperialism. We go to university and proceed to be indoctrinated with imperialist paradigms - imperialism. We go to work in retail where we sell cheap clothing made by Indonesian and Salvadoran sweatshop labor - more imperialism. We drive a car with oil stolen from Who-Knows-Where - imperialism. Even when we shop at hippie grocers ("good capitalists") and take the bus we are still reproducing the cycle of exploitation either physically or mentally by wallowing in imperialist culture.
The Third Worldist says this is exactly why organic radicalism can never come from the West. On the other side, the post-leftist would contend that within the consumer culture small kernels of resistance can form. They realize in this atmosphere of meaningless they search for new forms of existence. In both cases, the solution is to divorce yourself from capital as much as possible. Squat your next home, dumpster dive, and refuse to work or study. Throw off the rationalist paradigms that keep us glued to the social order.
The Maoist obsession with maintaining strict self-discipline would see the act of "dropping out" as a means of achieving a more radical and less degenerate mindset. Today, Western Maoists emphasize the much-needed escape from identities that condition one into maintaining an oppressor status. If you are white, you must rid your mind of "whiteness" as a vital act. If you were born into any other kind of privilege, you must proverbially self-flagellate until the reminiscence of your privilege is gone. Can one be expected to do so when they're actively participating in a culture that does nothing but reproduce imperialism?
The post-leftist willingly makes their life an expression of anarchy. They see the old anarchist strategies as useless in today's world. Much like Diogenes of old, they construct their lives outside the mainstream as much as they can. Bourgeois culture in total is something that ought to be rejected, as it is not only oppressive, but creates the aura of meaninglessness. Little acts of rebellion create a mental shield against the dominant culture. It is the outright refusal to be assimilated into capital that has the means of breaking the social law.
Post-leftists genuinely take up the paradigms and rituals of the outsider cultures. For them, it is not so much a fetish, but a learning experience. Third Worldists state the moral need to do so, as "Third Worlders" are, in their view, in possession of a metaphysical essence which propels them spiritually over their "First World" exploiters. Rather than insisting their (bastardized form of) Marxism ought to learn from them, Third Worldists insist on shoehorning the "paradigms of the oppressed" into a Marxist framework, where they naively insist that they're already on the same page.
From a Marxist perspective, it makes sense to reject the (non-)strategies of post-leftism. They are idealist, Utopian, romantic. But if one does accept the new narratives put forth by internet Third Worldists, would taking up a "lifestyle anarchism" be the only means left for "First Worlders" to weaken imperialism? Complete rejection of bourgeois culture means you eventually have nothing left to lose. Your dependence on the system for your experiences of life is gone, as is the state of mind which keeps you attached to it.
Perhaps the LLCO should collaborate with CrimethInc.
it's like m3w is the manifestation of the confusion felt in the face of global capital, where the traditional leftest instruments are weak, don't work, or are irrelevant. Confusion in that it's not known in the left in general what to do about it, because the "left" like all ideologies still emerges under a blanket of multi generational liberal democracy and all the ideological compromises made during the cold war, and their fetishization of the third world as a throwback to communisms european enlightenment ancestry. basically i think m3w is the successful absorption of communism by the western liberal world, i see it on many many levels. I completely agree with you and this is a fantastic observation that the left needs to explore, post-left is true leftism imo, post-left is dialectic, even trialectic!, but seriously global capital will have us all become lumpen so why not embrace it, we have so many more material ways to make these expressions compared to our ancestors. and also post left may become a vital place holder for when communism and the left strangle themselves in confusion in the face of 21st century reality. that's the thing, among all this is the fact that what are the in culture and out culture, the mainstream and counter culture, the left and right, isn't very clear today and many times counter to popular narratives. i think the left wings understanding of culture is old or broken or something, and they pride themselves on this european internationalism. ie fighting global capital may mean supporting new forms of cultural alienation and nationalism, who knows, i look forward to your next article, but hell yea, little acts of rebellion, always and every day, and big ones if you can stomach it, think defining all this will be a real trick.
ReplyDeleteAn online acquaintance of mine goes over the downfall of the Left (and Right) in this vlog of hers where she touches on some of the things you've brought up.
ReplyDeleteI can admire some of the antisocial tendencies of MTWism. What drives me up the wall is the blatant moralism and noble savage-y views of "Third Worlders" that the ideology espouses. I'll touch on it more in a future essay, but I think it all comes down to the modern Left's obsession with innocence. Either the Left has to appear completely innocent, or the peoples on whom they're projecting their revolutionary aspirations have to appear completely innocent (hence the "infantile" aspect - how can we be anything but innocent if we're mere children?). When people on the Right accuse us of "political correctness" by not acknowledging internal contradictions found in, say, Islamic cultures or African politics, what the Right is really seeing is the Left's overwhelming desire to out-moralize our enemies. MTWists take this idea to an extreme. "Third Worlders" become enlightened communist warriors ready to civilize the eevul oblivious, gluttonous First World.
(Compare: Georges Bataille loved exploring outsider cultures, but he admired them for their lack of moral abstractions, being the Nietzschean that he was.)
I have written against lifestyle anarchism in the past when I was a syndicalist/mutualist, but today I do see a use for rejecting most forms of bourgeois culture. I'd say it all comes down to how revolutionary subjects are created. If we reject essentialism, as many on the far-Left often claim to do, we would have to move towards molding the minds of the peoples whom we see as revolutionary in some form or another (it doesn't have to be in a manner that's authoritarian, for example).
One more thing: perhaps the most asinine thing I see from TWists is their attempts at culture critique. I've noticed how the more prominent TWists on the internet barely blog/vlog at all about events or revolutionary movements in the "Third World". Instead, the vast amount of their content are their half-assed critiques of Western culture, which basically amount to Frankfurt School-esque type stuff (sans the big words) saturated with bold claims about the frivolousness of modern life being solely caused by Third World exploitation. I don't think anyone denies that imperialism and neocolonialism are huge factors in all of this, but they do a terrible job of explaining it.
Deletemaybe that's where m3w emotional anti zizekism comes from, m3w's failure of a sophisticated cultural critique. I agree, my biggest peeve of Unruhes vlog, bless his soul for promoting the left, is how he rarely talks about actual communist struggles going on in the world right now, not that i know anything about it either but i don't claim m3wism. It makes me think part of the ideology is to cover up liberal shame, like they care about the third world the least out of even liberalism and this hyper attention to 1st world impotence is actually an attack on the third world in the most orientalist sense. Or it's just continuing typical leftist pedantry and identity politics. why, though i immerse myself in leftist thought i always keep at arms length calling myself any of the off the shelf varieties, probably why this post left idea appeals to me. I totally agree with rejecting the predominant culture, it's collapsing anyway, I think a big task for us will be sifting through the rubble and deciding what's worth holding onto, the boomers failed at this, i don't know where i stand on essentialism but i do very much agree with molding the minds of people whom we see as revolutionary, almost as an ancient art, during times of chaos this may be the only way to preserve a critical essence if there is indeed something to be preserved.
DeleteHonestly, everything MTWists say about Western culture was much better said by critical theorists like Herbert Marcuse and Jean Baudrillard, i.e. that the superexploitation of the Third World has made everyday life in the West mundane via extreme commodification and has caused the Western working class to become pacified and oblivious.
DeleteI think the fetishization of "Third Worlders" and the noticeable moralism go hand-in-hand. I'll go into it in more detail in my longer essays on the subject. Generally speaking, they assume propping up an idealized version of the "Third Worlder" is a moral thing to do, because the "Third Worlder" is spiritually purer than the Westerner. A very good example of this is the attitude towards religion. Orthodox Islam is championed as the "religion of the oppressed" and its ontology, epistemology, ethics, rituals, and traditions likewise go along perfectly with an egalitarian, communal Leftist agenda. But no one would say the same thing about Orthodox Judaism, despite the fact that Orthodox Judaism is far, far closer to Islam than it is Christianity in terms of paradigms and rituals. That's because Zionism has turned Judaism into an "oppressor religion" like Christianity, according to the more vulgar Leftists (tell that to Jews in Turkey or Ukraine!).
Speaking of religion, I've always laughed at how Christian a lot of MTWists come off as being (which is also deeply ironic considering how Maoism was the only major strain of Marxism that wasn't developed within a Christian context). To them, you are in possession of original sin by having been born in the West ("net exploiter"), and the only means to your salvation is complete faith in the belief that enlightened "Third World" revolutionaries will re-proletarianize you. Compare this to Islam or Judaism, where your salvation is mostly based on your willingness to act on God's commandments. But MTWists think that any actions "First Worlders" take against capitalism are either meaningless or further the suffering of the "Third World".
Western culture is indeed tanking. Things only seem to be getting worse. I've fully abandoned the myth of progress and see no use in thinking things will naturally get better over time. Maybe, to use an analogy from theology once again, my worldview is very Gnostic.
One other thing I want to bring up: why is it that MTWists never ever engage in a critique of technology? One could easily make the case that the modern Westerner's addiction to technological progress does a lot to further imperialism. After all, those raw materials found in your smart phone were probably extracted from a conflict-ridden region in Africa or southeast Asia. Post-leftists critique technology an awful lot.
ReplyDelete