Pill Pod 17 - LARPing in the Vampire Castle (Exclusive)
Added 2020-10-09 22:29:54 +0000 UTCHey ya'll. Join us for a tour de Mark Fisher, as we read "Exiting the Vampire Castle" as well as Tankies' comments on Matt's article on liberal socialism. Stay tuned for a bunch of Deleuze content this month!
Articles:
Vampire Castle: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle
Matt's article, "Socialist Don't Want to Destroy Liberalism": https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/socialism-liberalism-marx
Victor's article, "The Importance of Compassion": https://areomagazine.com/2020/08/25/oppositional-thinking-and-the-importance-of-compassion/
Comments
I wanna push back on Pill's pushback against the article a little (although this piece of content is almost 2 years old lol). I actually think it's just so lazy, and also kind of condescending, to dismiss people like Fisher here as paranoiacs who deludedly claim to fight against what really is only a phantasmagorical enemy. It's just yet another way of hand-waving legitimate critique that is actually meant to generate discussion about how to further what is, in principle, a shared cause. Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there, and when people like Fisher (almost a decade ago!), or those Matt mentions briefly towards the end, express their alienation and in some cases cite the Vampire Castle as what caused them to drift right, or better: to steer away from left, I think one should take that seriously, at least when actually interested in making a change. One problem with people like Peterson and the IDW more broadly is that (for reasons of propaganda or ignorance, I don't know) they lump the actual theory together with the people whose rhetoric can be traced back to it, and throw them out altogether, when what is really the problem is not the theory 'employed', but the character pathology of the person doing it, which someone rightly pointed out is what Fisher after all is getting at, and which makes his critique infinitely more valid than anything coming from the IDW types. It seems to me like what's needed is a callout culture against (demonstrably) illegitimate callouts (yes, they happen), because honestly, what I find most repellent is the perpetual disavowal that any of the criticism leveled by, e.g., Fisher might be even remotely true. Encountering figures like Fisher, who express these sentiments, but from within, is really what has made me open up to leftist thought and people, because it showed me that there's something beyond the glaringly toxic stuff I found in heaps when browsing 'progressive' twitter. Just something I wanted to have shared here -- I hope it's taken the right way!
milanjakob
2022-06-25 17:55:03 +0000 UTCThe problem with reform it's that it's not enough to fix capitalism's core issues; more pertinently, I'd argue that it's definitely not going to be enough to fix any of them in time to stop the worst of climate change. Also, capitalism is fueled by the desire for more profit, more exploitation, more markets, more resource extraction and hence is at the root of climate change. Furthermore, while serious reform would be nice (such as a UBI, free education, meaningful minimum wage increases, free healthcare in the US, etc), I honestly can't imagine any modern neoliberal state passing anything even close to that, or at least, not in enough countries to make a meaningful impact on the world stage. Liberalism keeps us within the confines of capitalism, it is a core part of ideology, a core part of capitalist realism, so yeah, while it should be replaced in the long run, Matt (and Marx) was right in arguing that the future society will be stamped with features of the past one. My main problem with liberalism is that it talks a good game about equality and freedom and whatever, but the economic conditions of liberal economies do not reflect this. Socialism is much better because it backs the claims of equality and freedom with economic and material foundations (as Matt pointed out right away in his Jacobin article). Really appreciate Matt's nuanced and empathetic insights on this episode, too.
anacidcommie
2021-04-04 12:42:37 +0000 UTCthen again pills i know you said you're new to being online so maybe I can't fault you for not realizing how bad it really is. i used to be skeptical of it as well, for the same reason.
Kate
2021-03-15 12:07:34 +0000 UTCi love pills but he's got some cringe takes on this one
Kate
2021-03-15 12:02:56 +0000 UTCI think Hardcore Tankeeism is really just political fandom more than anything. Virtual consumer identity. For any revolution to ever remotely become a possibility, way more people have to warm up to leftist ideas. Frankly, I think online Tankees are quite bad at doing that. At least the Anarchists are out on the streets.
1DimeMan
2020-10-12 19:13:35 +0000 UTCI cannot wait for more Deleuze content! Cheers!
Samhit Reddy
2020-10-10 01:16:42 +0000 UTCAt least an hour and 15 minutes of it? π
Plastic Pills
2020-10-09 23:33:39 +0000 UTCLooks like my weekend is going to be good....
Matthew
2020-10-09 22:44:41 +0000 UTC
