Re: Hardt - Negri on racism

On Sun, 18 Nov 2001 08:57:47 -0500, g kohler wrote:
>Their concept of "modern racism" has a spatial
>dimension, as in "colony" and "nation-state". In
>contrast, their concept of "imperial racism" is
>non-spatial.  Instead of being related to
>"colony" and "nation-
>state" (territorially defined entities), their
>"imperial racism" operates in a world without
>borders and is  based on "degrees of deviance
>from whiteness" (p194). They write, "modern
>racism takes place on its boundary, in the
>global antithesis between inside  and outside. .
>. .Imperial racism . . . rests on the play of
>differences and the management of micro
>-conflictualities within its continually
>expanding domain."  (p195) As examples for
>"modern", as opposed to "postmodern"/"imperial",
>racism they mention: "Manichaen divisions and
>rigid exclusionary practices (in  South Africa,
>in the colonial city, in the southeastern United
>States, or in Palestine) as the paradigm of
>modern racism" (p191).

Unfortunately Hardt and Negri put the nationalist yearnings of 
oppressed people on the same plane as those of their oppressors. This 
is an old sad story on the left that has had many reflections, from 
opposition to Malcolm X as a "black fascist" to people like 
Christopher Hitchens branding the al-Qaeda network as the latest 
manifestation of Nazism. In truth, the nationalism of the oppressed 
very often takes on retrograde aspects in its initial stages, until 
the masses learn to make class distinctions in the heat of battle.

You also get the same kind of argument from Zizek, but taken to nutty 
cultural studies, postmodernist extremes. He spells out his ideas in 
an interview with Spiked Online, a publication run by the cult around 
Frank Furedi, a U. of Kent sociologist who has mutated from ultraleft 
Marxism to red meat libertarianism.

>From http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000002D2C4.htm

SPIKED: Then let's return to some of the things that have been 
surprising us. In a recent article, you made the point that the 
terrorists mirror our civilisation. They are not out there, but 
mirror our own Western world. Can you elaborate on that some more?

Slavoj Zizek: This, of course, is my answer to this popular thesis by 
Samuel P Huntington and others that there is a so-called clash of 
civilisations. I don't buy this thesis, for a number of reasons.
 
Today's racism is precisely this racism of cultural difference. It no 
longer says: 'I am more than you.' It says: 'I want my culture, you 
can have yours.' Today, every right-winger says just that. These 
people can be very postmodern. They acknowledge that there is no 
natural tradition, that every culture is artificially constructed. In 
France, for example, you have a neo-fascist right that refers to the 
deconstructionists, saying: 'Yes, the lesson of deconstructionism 
against universalism is that there are only particular identities. 
So, if blacks can have their culture, why should we not have ours?'
----

Penetrating Zizek's jargon, one comes away with the rather banal 
observation that capitalist society is marked by racial pride, both 
within the oppressor and oppressed nationalities. Since, despite his 
Marxist pretensions, Zizek is not oriented to economic and social 
institutions, the whole thing becomes a matter of consciousness. Here 
is his answer to racism:

"Another thing that bothers me about this multiculturalism is when 
people ask me: 'How can you be sure that you are not a racist?' My 
answer is that there is only one way. If I can exchange insults, 
brutal jokes, dirty jokes, with a member of a different race and we 
both know it's not meant in a racist way. If, on the other hand, we 
play this politically correct game - 'Oh, I respect you, how 
interesting your customs are' - this is inverted racism, and it is 
disgusting.

"In the Yugoslav army where we were all of mixed nationalities, how 
did I become friends with Albanians? When we started to exchange 
obscenities, sexual innuendo, jokes. This is why this politically 
correct respect is just, as Freud put it, 'zielgehemmt'. You still 
have the aggression towards the other."

So, instead of talking about economic inequality, you end up with 
dirty jokes.

Hardt, Negri and Zizek epitomize the degeneration of the left 
academy. The first two write a book on Empire without a single graph 
illustrating capital flows, etc., while Zizek reduces racism to bad 
ideas. Humbug, I say.

-- 
Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 11/18/2001

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