Rynek żywi się śmiercią: Endokolonizacyjna logika momentu faszystowskiego

This article poses the question of whether what we are witnessing today can be properly described as “fascistic.” It argues that it can if we understand fascism as an attack on liberal-democracy resulting from the now chronic (rather than acute) crisis of capitalism. Like the fascism of the twentieth century, this entails an endocolonizing logic that nonetheless relinquishes its claim on a future increasingly imperilled by the nature of the Covid-19 pandemic in the context of the impending climate emergency.Artykuł stawia pytanie o to, czy obserwowane obecnie procesy mogą być określone jako faszystowskie. Przedstawiona argumentacja wskazuje, że tak – jeśli rozumiemy faszyzm jako atak na liberalną demokrację, wynikający z chronicznego raczej (niż nagłego) kryzysu kapitalizmu. Tak jak w XX-wiecznym faszyzmie, obejmuje on kolonizację ciał, która jednak zrzeka się roszczeń do przyszłości w obliczu pandemii Covid-19 i w kontekście wyzwania klimatycznego

Identity Crisis: The Politics of False Concreteness

The global emergence of authoritarianism has, unsurprisingly, provoked analogies with the Weimar period. Yet caution must be exercised when reasoning by historical analogy. While we ought not so easily be swayed by analogical reasoning, the European interwar period might yet hold some unexpected lessons for us today. Neoliberalism exacerbates the rationalization tendencies of capitalist modernization through heightened processes of institutional and ideological abstraction. This means the unceasing subordination of qualitative human needs and aspirations to the quantitative monetary values of the market and the dynamics of capital accumulation. Such processes come under pressure in moments of crisis, giving rise to a fragmentation of the universalism that had historically underwritten the struggle for socialism, leading to aspirations to what could be called a false concreteness centred on a particularistic form of identity on both the contemporary right as well as the left. Each of these forms of ‘false concreteness’ eschews universalism, and has thus contributed to the crippling polarizations of our times. On the right, this has taken the form of authoritarian ethno-nationalism. On the left, identity politics, far from challenging the neoliberal consensus, only reinforces its iron grip.4 In these ways, neoliberalism’s deepening of the increasingly abstract nature of social life under capitalism redoubles tendencies towards re-enchantment as a way of providing false solutions to real problems. After looking at the radical conservative response to Weber’s diagnosis of modernity, I turn to neoliberalism’s heightening of abstraction, before showing the way in which identity politics represents an ostensible response to this logic by seeking to grasp the concrete or the particular in its immediacy. In conclusion, I suggest a way in which class analysis can provide a genuine alternative to such a politics, one that articulates what Ato Sekyi-Otu calls ‘left universalism’

The Colour of Adorno\u27s Thought and On Monochromy and Repressive Tolerance:Notes on the Post WWII Recrudescence of the Revolutionary Form

Hito Steyerl’s installation Adorno’s Grey (2012) features a single channel video set at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt where Theodor W. Adorno famously taught. It shows two conservators scraping the walls of a lecture hall, looking for the legendary grey that Adorno had his classroom painted in order to promote concentration. The “Busenattentat” (Breast Attack) incident that occurred during his 1969 lecture series, “Introduction to Dialectical Thinking”, is narrated and interpreted over the forensic performance. Parallel to the excavation, Steyerl uncovers a constellation of artifacts from the histories of student protests, nude protests and monochrome painting. In her practice, Steyerl employs riddles, puns and word play as tools for ideological critique. In Adorno’s Grey, she exercises the dialectical properties of grey within philosophy, aesthetics, pedagogy and politics

Understanding the Neoliberal Personality. Below the Radar podcast

In the current neoliberal world order, is it possible for authoritarianism to return? When we look to the founding of Germany in 1949, a decision was made to follow the logic of ordoliberalism: to firmly regulate the state through the market so as to prevent a return of fascism and authoritarianism. However, according to Samir Gandesha, the opposite effect happened. In this episode, Samir and our host Am Johal discuss the ‘neoliberal identity’, what contributes to it, and how this impacts our current political world order. Samir Gandesha is the director of the Institute for the Humanities at SFU and an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities. He specializes in modern European thought and culture, with a particular emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. Recently, Samir has written about authoritarianism and the neoliberal personality, along with other theoretical work. Samir is the editor of the forthcoming publication, \u27Spectres of Fascism\u27 in 2020 with Pluto Press; co-editor with Peyman Vahabzadeh of the publication \u27Crossing Borders: Essays in Honour of Ian Angus\u27, forthcoming from Arbeiter Ring Press in 2020; and is also preparing a manuscript on the \u27Neoliberal Personality\u27. You can learn more about Samir and the Institute for the Humanities at www.sfu.ca/humanities-institute.html

Arendt and Adorno:Political and Philosophical Investigations

Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, two of the most influential political philosophers and theorists of the twentieth century, were contemporaries with similar interests, backgrounds, and a shared experience of exile. Yet until now, no book has brought them together. In this first comparative study of their work, leading scholars discuss divergences, disclose surprising affinities, and find common ground between the two thinkers. This pioneering work recovers the relevance of Arendt and Adorno for contemporary political theory and philosophy and lays the foundation for a critical understanding of political modernity: from universalistic claims for political freedom to the abyss of genocidal politics