Sadly, the innate human propensity to “hate the Other” seals our fate as a society… or something along those lines.
I am going to argue that this narrative is nonsense. It tries to pass off as universal and eternal something that in reality is particular and ephemeral. In short: Westerners aren’t helpless innocents whose minds are injected with atrocity propaganda, science fiction-style; they’re generally smug bourgeois proletarians who intelligently seek out as much racist propaganda as they can get their hands on. This is because it fundamentally makes them feel better about who they are and how they live. The psychic and material costs are rationally worth the benefits.
I agree with the sentiment but I’m scratching my head trying to work out what a bourgeois proletarian is.
Bourgeoisie = owns the means of production
Proletarian = owns and sells their labour
So a bourgeois proletarian is… a worker that sells their own labour but also owns the means of production? Like an employee at a state-owned business within a dictatorship of the proletariat? So like most Chinese people? So putting that back into the quote, Westerners are generally smug Chinese? Oh! Like Gordon Chang or Ian Miles Cheong or Melissa Chan.
brb need to wash my hands after typing those three names all in a row
This article from redsails is so great and I think it’s probably been one of the most impactful pieces of writing in altering my perspective and approach to organizing.
It comes from Red Sails, who may have the author we might not always agree with (Roderic Day), but I think he’s good with the subject.
Related to this, I think there’s also an article of a similar sentiment and thesis, though not from the same publisher and author, “The Demiurge doesn’t exist”
Historicization shows that all things have an explanation, a beginning and an end, whereas fetishization presents them as opaque and eternal. In other words, historicization is a kind of centering that is a partisan of intelligibility and change, whereas fetishization invisibilizes both.
That last paragraph is straight up fire. I am tired of excuses being made for some of the worst people on earth.
I agree with the sentiment but I’m scratching my head trying to work out what a bourgeois proletarian is.
Bourgeoisie = owns the means of production
Proletarian = owns and sells their labour
So a bourgeois proletarian is… a worker that sells their own labour but also owns the means of production? Like an employee at a state-owned business within a dictatorship of the proletariat? So like most Chinese people? So putting that back into the quote, Westerners are generally smug Chinese? Oh! Like Gordon Chang or Ian Miles Cheong or Melissa Chan.
brb need to wash my hands after typing those three names all in a row
Sorry, I think it refers to the proletarians in the imperial core/west/Global North (read Europe and U.S), who’ve been reaping ALSO the shares of unequal exchange, along with the dominant western capitalist classes that exploits them and imbeds them in such system (read: uncompensated appropriation of land, energy, natural resources, and labor). An example of the modern imperialism, in this day and age. Search more about it from Jason Hickel, not to be confused with Jackson Hinkle.
Sounds like you’re describing ‘labor aristocracy’
Yes. Call 'em what others will, but the article author I quoted says it like so. Plus, I think Engels would’ve agreed with calling them that
This article from redsails is so great and I think it’s probably been one of the most impactful pieces of writing in altering my perspective and approach to organizing.
Is that the no such thing as propaganda article? That article is so good.
Could you link this article? I cannot find it.
https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
It comes from Red Sails, who may have the author we might not always agree with (Roderic Day), but I think he’s good with the subject.
Related to this, I think there’s also an article of a similar sentiment and thesis, though not from the same publisher and author, “The Demiurge doesn’t exist”