Is a new kind of politics possible?
In the introduction to their provocative book Hyperobjects, theorist Timothy Morton slips in a brief jab at what you might think are their natural political allies, warning, “if there is no metalanguage, then cynical distance, the dominant ideological mode of the left, is in very bad shape, and will not be able to cope with the time of hyperobjects.”
Though the book was written in 2013, its political observations are perhaps more relevant now than they were then, as today we find the American left splintering, like the famous Monty Python sketch, into endless subgroups, each attempting to be more cynical than the last. The natural end-state of detached leftist irony appears to have been reached in the so-called post-left, which has managed to convince itself that right populism is the true Marxism.
It’s easy to laugh at this seeming paradox (in fact, the lulz are the point), but you’ve likely already seen its effects at work. It’s present in the edgelord in the group thread who likes to start conversations by saying things like, “I think it’s odd that more of my pro-union friends aren’t in unions.” It’s in the radical Facebook groups you joined during the 2020 protests who have started claiming NATO wanted the war in Ukraine. It’s in the friend who regrams posts blaming the Democratic party for anti-trans laws.
Read the rest of Gabe’s blog, here: https://www.gabestein.com/jz6cim0e/