Don't just stand there. Do something! Part 1: There is no emancipation in narratives
Social, cultural, political and economic analysis and critique is great as far as it goes. It helps me understand the world in which I live and do the things I do. And then what?
I feel I might be getting closer to a pole or a zero, or some even more alarming singularity, as I traverse the complex analytic domain of intellectual discourse. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up stuck forever in some resonant oscillation.
In recent months I took part in comments on Glenn Greenwald’s and Matt Taibbi’s blogs here on Substack. It’s been great. To my surprise, the quality of discourse in comments in both of those blogs has been improving. That’s unexpected, wonderful and encouraging.
But in discussion of a recent Taibbi post some new ideas appeared that gave me some hope that I may find a way to escape the sucking nullity of understanding. A few things predate that discussion. The sad, bitter nihilism of Matt Christman on Useful Idiots probably helped me get here. And the sad, bitter nihilism of Yasha Levine’s remarks on new indie media was basically the same. And I spent a lot of time on Naked Capitalism last year, which, much as I admire it (I really do) seems largely unwilling to take the step from critical analysis to consequent moral choices. It is, at heart, technocratic in its respect for expertise.
Then finally, right at the start of this year, my hero Krystal Ball launches an excellent new pod Krystal, Kyle and Friends, which pushed me over the edge. It’s good. Really top shelf. But I felt, without much understanding of the feeling, that I’ve had enough. That I have to stop this endless discursive preparation for strategies that never come into action. I want to do something.
So in this and idk how many subsequent blog posts, I’m going to try to work out my options. In this first one, I try to look at and describe the intellectual null point itself. This is not novel. I think even Matt Christman said the same several times but it's hard to be sure given his style of oration. And I imagine he’s not novel either. (The point is, I have to write my words down to help relieve the pressure of these thoughts on my consciousness. Blogging is purgative—better out than in. I blog for me, not for thee. You were supposed to navigate to a more interesting web page five paragraphs ago.)
There is no emancipation in narratives
I see a hierarchy of narratives.
The culture war is the primary narrative. People argue about gunz, abortions, immigration, political correctness, race etc. Many people in the USA are deeply invested in their beliefs and their role in this narrative. So much that they may feel badly towards their supposed enemies in this war. And so much that much of the available time and space for public political discourse is consumed by this narrative.
The secondary narrative is the more-or-less objective discussion of what’s going on in the primary. “The culture war is robbing us of our common values and humanity” would be an example of an assertion in the secondary narrative. Matt Taibbi’s blog takes place largely in this level. (Granted, comments on his blogs also have their measure of heated primary narrative.)
The tertiary narrative is the pervasive propaganda that American politics is culture and the culture war is American politics. Very little is said in MSM about the real economy (as opposed to financial capital) except as it relates to the primary narrative. For example NYT might write about the economic dynamics of their so-called white working class but only when talking about how that class voted for Trump.
The fourth level of narrative is, logically enough, the meta-narrative of the tertiary narrative. Herman & Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent belongs in this level.
In the fourth level we can talk about how the status quo is not politically neutral and support for it is a specific political ideology, indeed it is a pervasive ideology and an especially effective one because it is seldom remarked upon. And we can talk about how the R/D political duopoly serves the status quo and its ideology and how protecting and expanding the power, privilege and wealth of the oligarchs that bestride the status quo is their common goal. And that the R vs. D political opposition is all sham theatrics required to hide their broad practical consensus.
This fourth level narrative also observes how the tertiary narrative (culture≡politics) stymies formation of a broad-based political movement of ordinary people against the oligarchy and how the oligarchs accomplish this propaganda and control simply by owning the media (legally) and most of government (through mostly legal government corruption). Formation of a true populist movement (see Thomas Frank’s The People, No!) is the only plausible existential threat to the status quo but it is neutralized if we are divided and conquered by the first and third narratives.
(Note how both the primary and secondary narrative also serves the status quo by supporting the culture≡politics narrative. The primary by doing it and the secondary by talkiang about it. )
And I could go on to notice how the American system of power has the advantage of not being a centralized hierarchy of authoritarian power. It’s more like mafia families (i.e. corporations and the most wealthy actual families) who both cooperate and compete with each other to protect and enhance their own influence. So there is no single-point of failure and no class of subordinate bureaucrats that you might infiltrate. Nobody is in charge. Its a dynamic network constantly rearranging itself around who are the most successful psychotically greedy and domineering mafia bosses.
Maybe I should add a fifth level narrative in which we discuss how human psychology will usually respond to understanding the above with inaction. Call it cynicism, despair, nihilism or whatever you like, it doesn’t matter, what matters is you become either unhappy or a dick or both and don’t do anything.
It’s as though some genius logician designed this system of narratives and built a self-referential loop into the logic. No matter how much of it you understand, you’re still stuck in an economic, political and propaganda system that’s immune to what you know, no matter what it is, by some diabolical reflexive property. The more you know, the more obvious it is that the knowledge makes no difference except perhaps to drive you mad.
And that’s what I mean by there being no emancipation in narratives. There’s a back hole at the center of it.
Thankfully science has made clear the dangers of getting too close and I have some ideas for other activities while I steer my spaceship elsewhere. I hope to discuss those here another day.
THE BLACK HOLE is the most bizarre and disturbing Disney movie of all time. The fact that it got made and marketed to children says something about mass media culture in the late '70s.
"And I could go on to notice how the American system of power has the advantage of not being a centralized hierarchy of authoritarian power. It’s more like mafia families (i.e. corporations and the most wealthy actual families) who both cooperate and compete with each other to protect and enhance their own influence."
"Everything in America has its own mafia." --Eduard Limonov, HIS BUTLER'S STORY (1987).