Misguided Myopia or Peak Hypocrisy? Campus Antifascist Network
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you...
Misguided Myopia or Peak Hypocrisy? Campus Antifascist Network
As an opponent of fascism in all its forms, I was absolutely flabbergasted by the latest movement afoot on college campuses taking place under the acronym CAN. At first I wanted to write a satire piece about the so-called Campus Antifascist Network (CAN), but decided no satire could do justice to the incomprehensible degree of hypocrisy, lack of historical awareness, moral relativism and demonstrable doublethink on display.
The Campus Antifascist Network
For those who are unaware of the newly established Campus Antifascist Network (CAN), there have been a number of write-ups to date: "Campus Antifascist Network", "Profs solicit support for 'Campus Antifascist Network'", "College Professors Are Trying to Establish a National Campus Antifa Network](http://www.dailywire.com/news/20049/college-professors-are-trying-establish-emily-zanotti) and "College Professors Begin Direct Support For AntiFa Groups On Campuses', all of which are recommended background reading for the following discussion.
For those who don't care to catch up that way, CAN - the Campus Antifascist Network - is a new "big tent" for everyone dedicated to fighting fascism on college campuses. Its founders are Prof. David Palumbo-Liu (Stanford) and Prof. Bill V. Mullen (Purdue) whose specializations, including critical race theory and Marxism, are worth viewing on their respective websites.
In the following, I am going to briefly consider what 'fascism' is, how CAN is (perhaps) unintentionally promoting fascism under, and place it the larger context of the current downward spiral of civil discourse in the United States. In closing I will ponder what this means for moderates, centrists, classical liberals, conservatives, voluntarists and libertarians who do not associate, identify with or bear sympathies with the radical fringes of the left and the right.
So What is 'Fascism'?
The renowned professor of history Robert O. Paxton, who is a leading scholar of fascism in both the 20th and 21st century, describes 'fascism' as:
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. source
This definition, in my opinion, makes it clear that fascism is a tactic or a strategy, and as such is capable of being employed by any political group to further its ends. By my reading of the political landscape in the United States today, both the radical right AND the radical left are abandoning democratic liberties and pursuing violence with the goal of cleansing and expanding their misanthropic, anti-freedom ideologies. Indeed, Antifa and the KKK (just to name two) seem to embody the above definition almost to a 'T' (the sole exception being that the term 'nationalist' does not seem to apply to Antifa).
So, based on the definition above, despite that Antifa and the radical left are demonstrably behaving as fascists (although no longer opposed to Marxism as was case with historical forms of fascism), it appears the population is supposed to just believe that fascism can only be a right-wing movement or form of government because Goolag decided to change the definition a few months ago. Nobody is denying that fascism is a tactic used by the radical right, but it would be remiss to not acknowledge that the radical left is behaving in much the same way.
The Counterproductive Decisions of the Campus Antifascist Network (CAN)
I don't know what Palumbo-Liu and Mullen have been smoking, but believing that that their calls to condemn "a hateful ideology that targets particular groups based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and wish to dominate exclude, drive out, and harm members of those groups with force and violence,"source while embracing Antifa will inevitably makes them appear as hypocrites in the eyes of many people who occupy the middle of the political spectrum.
CAN makes explicit that it wishes to cleanse campuses of "the kinds of actions a group is known to engage in that precisely impinge upon others' free speech, academic freedom, and civil liberties."source How this can be claimed with a straight face while supporting Antifa made me actually think the whole thing had to be a prank or satire, but it is not. They appear to really be that myopically misguided.
The examples of Antifa using violence to shut down free speech are literally so numerous I couldn't choose which video to post to demonstrate the hypocrisy the best, but this one from Berkeley will do:
When asked about Antifa's violent protests, riots and attacks against others for exercising their free speech, professor Palumbo-Liu claimed that the Campus Antifascist Network would reject some elements of the Antifa movement and only "advocate self-defense and defense in various forms of those who are being threatened by fascists."source (emphasis mine)
It is perhaps worth noting that Liu is a professor at Stanford University, less than an hour's drive from his alma mater UC Berkeley (the location of the above video). As a voluntarist, I believe Liu's advocacy of "self defense in various forms" fails to go far enough in condemning the use of violence as an ideological tool to silence free speech, and this is why: the radical left has begun openly advocating the preemptive use of violence to silence free speech, shut down its ideological opponents and even to attack those who would merely disagree with their tactics.
It is important to remember that the Berkeley anti-free speech riot of 2017 to silence Milo Yiannopoulos - and the violence that manifested there - was described by a columnist for The Daily Californian, as follows:
"These were not acts of violence. They were acts of self-defense... I recommend you learn your lesson."
This was just one rationalization of violence to silence free speech amongst many collected and published under the byline "Here are a few arguments in favor of the use of violence in protests". I particularly like the implicit threat of violence in the above quote, it is a very nice rhetorical touch that pretty much says it all. The lunatics are running the asylum.
How then am I to understand Liu's careful formulation about self-defense? Should I just believe he wants the best for everybody involved? I have a hard time with vague formulations like this on self-defense, especially by a philologist, and here's why: As any literature professor worth his salt knows, the postmodernist deconstructive manipulation of language (derived from Jacques Derrida's deconstruction and its bastardization in the realm of philology) enables enough "wiggle room" to say everything and nothing at the same time. The statement does not actually condemn the preemptive violence of Antifa, as long as it is undertaken in the belief that it is in self-defense (regardless of whether that belief is justified or not). It reads very much like a tacit acceptance of the principle of initiating violence against those who choose to exercise free speech in a peaceful manner.
This ties in with the topics of relativism and the privileging of subjective belief over objective reality that I have discussed many times in my treatments of the contemporary social justice movement in higher education and its subversion by acolytes of Critical Theory since the 1960s. (See the list of relevant links at the end of this article).
What CAN Can and Can't Do
The invitation letter to CAN reads, in part:
"Since Trump’s election, fascists, neo-fascists, and their allies have used blatantly Islamophobic, anti-semitic, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, and ableist messaging and iconography to recruit to their ranks and intimidate students, faculty and staff... Fascists have used “free speech” as a façade for attacking faculty who have stood in solidarity with students against the threat that these organizations and individuals pose..."
Aside from the fact that Liu and Mullen both apparently support the Boycott-Divest-Sanction movement against Israel, which has been decried as anti-Semitic source, I had to ask myself if they are really unaware of the anti-Christian, "reverse"-racist, misandric, cis-heterophobic, messaging and iconography being used to enforce conformity on colleges campuses. If not, they can follow the hyperlinks for just a few examples of the thousands that can be found with a single Goolag search. Can they not recognize the irony of defending Antifa which is using free speech as a façade to shut down free speech? The hypocrisy is stunning. CAN can include 'Antifascist' in its name, but by embracing Antifa... well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
CAN is practically satirizing itself by demonstrating a complete lack of any self-awareness as to the fact that Antifa is using fascist tactics, which actually makes it a... you guessed it... fascist organization. Liu does make a good observation when he pointed out that the radical right is using Trump's election "as an excuse to march and organize around slogans drawn directly from “blood and soil” rhetoric of Nazi Germany..." But here he needs to be aware of what his own "side" is doing. So what can't CAN do? It can't afford to be throwing stones in the glass house that is the left. As the following video reveals, the left is also capable of embracing Nazi rhetoric, indeed, they applaud it (really, watch this, it will blow your mind, go to timestamp 3:48 - the guy who made this video had a great catch):
Admittedly, the useful idiots (in the Leninist sense) in the crowd probably have no idea what they are listening to, despite that the enslavement of the individual to the state is explicitly spelled out.
And now?
In light of this complete lack of historical awareness and utter lack of understanding as to what fascism is by young people today, should we really be surprised that Antifa is using the tactics of fascism to promote its Marxist goals? Should we be surprised the petition to label Antifa a terrorist organization garnered more than 250k signatures in less than a week? Should we be surprised that the rise in violence on both the left and the right is only polarizing the country and making any kind of reconciliation impossible?
At least not all of the leftist intellectuals see Antifa as a productive movement, as Noam Chomsky recently discussed (and for which he was roundly criticized) with the Washington Examiner in the article "Noam Chomsky: Antifa is a 'major gift to the Right'". This interview with Chomsky should be a wake-up call to all Americans, especially the increasingly disconnected left.
The Final Note
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, it seemed all that civil society and the majority of the country really had to worry about was a few kooks on the very far right. I don't remember anybody screaming about the left (the McCarthy hearings were before my time). In the 80s, Republicans and Democrats had their views and their votes, but it didn't seem to actually stop people from having civil discussion or debating things, it didn't tear families apart and destroy marriages. But today those times are obviously gone. Politics has become so polarizing that people fly off their hinges at any criticism of some partisan hero or even the mention of an opponent. Goolag search any of these topics, and you will see just how bad it has gotten.
If today you are a moderate, centrist, classical liberal, conservative, voluntarist or libertarian, or just not on one of the two extremes, it is like being tied to a chair and surrounded by black-clad clowns to the left and white-clad jokers to the right. Instead of trying to cut off your ear though, they are having a knife fight while you're stuck in the middle listening to the Stealers Wheelers on repeat. It's enough to make want you to get out of the way so they can just destroy each other and put themselves out of our collective misery.
In my opinion, partisanship along established two-party political lines in the United States today is toxic to relationships, poisonous to the soul and debilitating to the mind, it is the divide and conquer tactic at work. From that perspective, the Campus Antifascist Network is only going to exacerbate things and is very poorly conceived given the inherent contradiction of supporting Antifa. Maybe this is just a very serious case of tunnel vision, maybe it is hypocrisy. Either way, it is time for them to listen to someone outside of their ivory echo-chamber. If Liu and Mullen had any sense, they would scrap the project in its current form, rename it the Network Against Fascism and disavow any and all groups that use fascist tactics to affect political or social change.
But I won't be holding my breath.
A list of my relevant critical posts dealing with the social justice movement:
Meritocracy is Dead - Diversity and Privilege in Higher Education
Safe Spaces - The Dystopian Infantilization of America's Youth (Part 1)
Safe Spaces - The Dystopian Infantilization of America's Youth (Part 2)
"Cognitive Privilege" & Peak Social Justice Stupidity (satire)
Horror on the Horizon - Cultural Misappropriation and The Politics of Oppression.
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I'm afraid we're going to hear many ugly things this autumn with these maniacs let loose on campuses!
I think you're right, it is going to get worse before it gets better (if it gets better without the doodoo really hitting the fan). Thanks for taking the time to comment. If you like ranty non politically correct stuff, try some of my other articles I listed in this post - they will likely appeal to you.
Remember when David Duke publicly called for assassination of President Obama? Or when the pro-life groups burned-down a Planned Parenthood office, after discovering the organization was selling fetal tissue? How about when Liberty University students rioted because Senator Sanders was engaged to speak at their university? Wait . . . what? These events never happened? These are paranoid delusions of most leftists?
Leftists do not even have the intellectual capacity or civil decency, of those whom they demonize, to use the political or legal channels to accomplish their desired goals. This, when the leftist prevailing belief is that the demographic shift favors their agendas in the longer-term. If the leftists call for essentially civil war, when they have merely suffered a set-back, what would these people do when they are defeated? Even worse, what will they do when they regain their lost political influence?
I really enjoy the sarcasm you lead off with, thanks for that. I had a good read-between-the-lines exchange with @thatgermandude over the last few days, and one of the things that resonated with me the most and seems worth remarking upon here is that at times I say "the left" when what I probably should say is "the radical leftist freak show sociopaths". Actually, I have to come up with some good acronym there.... anyway... Classical liberals used to be the left and those who define themselves as classical liberals still see themselves as on the left (even if today they are considered hard core conservatives for advocating free speech and property rights), I would hate to have them thinking I have written them off as lost causes participating in the mental illness of the radical left that you described so eloquently in your second paragraph. Thanks for your response Soo, always welcomed and appreciated!
one of the biggest mistakes the Right, and the Middle, make is assuming that the Left is sincere in what it says
Always got to watch the choco ration with these folks, and compare to what they said the day before
One constant in leftist dialogue is the justification of violence against those who question them
otherwise, whatever they say is simply due to the political demand of the day
Absolutely on target with your comment. The justifications of violence are almost limitless. I actually asked an Antifa guy I know if he realized that silencing free speech is a fascist tactic and he replied, no joke, "Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire." No firm intellectual or moral stance at all, unbelievable. A complete unwillingness to acknowledge any inconsistency.
CAN sounds a lot like CAIR to me. If they sincerely want to fight fascism, racism, and extreme religious ideologies, they should stop working part-time for Darth Soros, and just join the Army.
ISIS is an organization that actively enslaves people (largely blacks) and all the other things they claim they are against. And hey, they get the G.I. bill (college) too if they want it!
Of course, what they really want is not justice, but DRAMA. Lots of drama, and any excuse that gains traction they'll use to tear away at the moral fabric of society. Supporting a cause like this is usually just a substitute for having moral values, work ethic, and courage.
Your comment is on the money. Drama sells, their self-proclaimed victimhood recruits sympathizers, and together with the big money funded through shell NGOs the globalists are laughing their way to the bank and the ballot box to completely revamp the American system in their own image. They have already succeeded in the EU where democracy is essentially dead and is rapidly being supplanted completely by technocratic authoritarianism.
Mhh you know I got a different opinion on this and that is why I love to discuss the topic.
I mean you are correct. The far right and the far left are not that different at all, but I want to embrace this and not use it as evidence against the movements :3.
At their core they are promoting a radical change of government, something we libertarians want as well. I don't see why would want to protect our fundraised-vote-once-every-4th-year-system.
Socialism has always been been more about criticizing the establishment and promoting sharing over egoism. Marx was one of the view who got rather concrete in promoting solutions and that is why he is the most known, but I read many more and most of them are much more on the pacifist side of life.
I think something you are rightfully upset about is the stupid violence. It does not make sense to burn cars in the street or refugee homes, it just leads to hate and chaos.
The violent arms of the left and the right are actually not that strong, but they receive a lot of attentions for their actions, even through people like you and me writing about them. It reminds a lot of a Rammstein song when people commit crimes just to get attention.
Good to get a constructive response, thanks! The interplay of ideas has a refining and moderating effect and that's why I like when people see things differently. I too am for a radical change...towards voluntarism. I am aware that Marx is only one of many who advocates more social responsibility, but he does so via a non-voluntary and violent means. Some Marxist scholars even acknowledge that if the Marxist utopia was achieved, it would merely be returning to the beginning of the cycle that lead us to where we are today. So while his goal may be admirable, his methods are inhumane and border on insane for their inability to maintain the goal but being worthwhile nonetheless.
Socialism is a great idea but sooner or later ideology always meets asphalt. As is often said, sooner or later socialism runs out of other people's money to feed the ever increasing demands by those who can just vote for more and the ever-increasing number of people who want free handouts for doing nothing (regardless of whether they are drawn from abroad or grow organically domestically). If you remove the voter component, then the wealth gets concentrated in the hands of the apparatchiks and power brokers. In both version the government must become increasingly repressive to sustain itself (as all forms of government to date apparently).
If we could actually raise people to believe in the non-aggression principle coupled with altruistic voluntarism as a social and political order, the goals of peaceful coexistence without violence would be possible. Any forced subjugation of the individual that disadvantages them in any way is doomed to fail because while humans will tolerate such oppression for a while, ultimately they will rise up and cast off the chains that bind them or leave to where the oppression is less. Socialism, communism, hell, even democracy depends on the involuntary subjugation of the individual.
People will always say, "But you can leave!" But where to? Another nation state dominated by some other political system that relies on the subjugation of the individual? That is why there are so many "Aussteiger" that disappear to countries that are so poor their governments barely function, where there's no healthcare, barely any roads, limited food supplies etc. and are happier there than in the west. I think some portions of mankind are genuinely experiencing the next evolutionary step in consciousness but the governmental structures aren't keeping up. Anyway, this is all probably another post in its own right, so I will leave it there. Cheers!
same ;)
Like I mentioned before I want everybody determine for themselves how much and with whom they want social contracts. I don't think many people would not want to give their share for a working Autobahn or Public Transport system. F the DB, but I like that you can get drunk in Germany and still travel anywhere without bad conscience ;)
You should not be forced to give your money for Wars and subventions of big corporations. And t be clear I don't think you should be forced into any social contract, I just think that many people would voluntarily sign them at least for basic stuff like water and electricity.
You also should not be forced to move to another country if you don't want to be part of a local community. That is why I advocate localism so that you have enough communities to choose. Being a Hermit should be possible through buying your own land and making your own rules.
I wrote a really short post that elaborates a little on my anti-antifa concerns. The Video is also really funny :).
Sounds like we are very much on the same page in this regards. You sound more like an advocate of voluntarism than socialism. Most people would contribute to those things that they consider important for quality of life, the challenge is getting people to recognize the indirect benefits they derive investment in things not directly related to them. Education could be taken as an example, where people without children would be well served to contribute to education funds because it could improve the overall conditions of society (if done right). Will check out your post, thanks for the comment!
Volunteristic socialists believe that everybody would want a form of socialism if there is no overwhelming ruleset/law. Volunteristic capitalists believe we all want no social rules when their is no law. It is very easy to combine the two, but people on the left side of the movement get triggered by the word "Capitalist" and the right/americans by the word "Socialist".
The definitions of socialist and capitalist differ from camp to camp and frankly I don't get how socialism, a movement aimed at providing a fair chance for everyone despite their class, is the new evil, and capitalism, where the word Capital is even referring to an dictatorship of the people who managed to claim the assets of the world, is the salvation.
Not so long ago I came to the conclusion that I needed to drop the term anarcho-capitalist and don the term voluntaryist.
This came about after a very long discussion with an anarcho-communist... where I realized that there was no difference at all in what we believed politically, just personally... and that he and I could have been great neighbors even though I favored personal ownership of property and he favored communal ownership.
Both of us agreed on the NAP... and so our labels were simply tripping us both up. As I saw recently here somewhere (Larkin Rose maybe...) it is often better to define oneself by what one believes in than by what one does not believe in... lest one don the title anti-Santaist.
Und Rammstein finde ich ja total geil.
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if it's not STEM it's not worth wasting time or money on.
I think there is an important role for the liberal arts and sciences in education, but under current conditions it does appear increasingly counterproductive to continue funding disciplines that are not contributing to the creation of a populace capable of critical thinking.
science good
arts..a hobby..
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STOPI'd venture to say that part of what we are seeing is the obvious result of allowing our children to attend schools that have an agenda of control and the production of "good citizens" and "corporate employees".
By neglecting to teach things such as rights, lawful process, real history, speech (especially discussion, negotiation, and debate), active reading, and logic... and instead focusing on authoritarianism and nothing that 90% of children will ever have use of in their lives, our children are being raised to become useful idiots.
By allowing our youth to be indoctrinated by authoritarians we will eventually end up like the Weimar Republic. For some reason I get the feeling that we are almost there... and articles like this make me even more certain.
I don't watch corporate media and I've only recently heard the term "antifa"... and just doing a little research made me sigh... fascists against antifascists. Maybe they should re-brand themselves the fantifas.
When I was much younger I played a lot of Quake... and my handle was "Religion" as I then thought that religion killed more people than just about anyone throughout the ages.
If I knew what I know now, my handle would have been Government... and today many people I know (maybe most) seem to have a religious belief in the goodness of governments. You would also have heard a lot of "Dammit Government!" as you walked around the building when a good game was going... which probably would have caused the games to stop quickly.
Oh, and I wouldn't be holding my breath either. The hard part is always feeling like one is wasting ones breath when using logic to try and reach people that refuse to think. In a world where truth is relative logic has very little weight.