On the Rise of the Useful Idiot

 Adapted from the poster for I Am Greta

(a documentary film dir. Nathan Grossman, 2020)

 

I. 

 

Byung-Chul Han says that the idiot has all but vanished from our society. But Han is not using the term idiot in its familiar modern sense (i.e., to refer to a stupid person). 

 

Rather, he's returning to the ancient Greek term from which it derives - ἰδιώτης - which refers to a private individual who prefers to think their own thoughts rather than simply subscribe to common sense or conform to popular opinion (even at the risk of appearing ignorant or foolish). 

 

For Han, the idiot is thus a type of outsider or heretic; not so much uninformed as unaligned with any party or cause; someone who values freedom and opposes the violence of consensus [1]. The idiot, in brief, is the kind of person attracted to philosophy, a practice born - like psychology - of idleness and characterised - like art - by its uselessness [2].   

 

 

II.

 

Unfortunately, however, there's more than one type of idiot in this world.

 

And if the type of useless philosophical idiot privileged by Byung-Chul Han has all but vanished from contemporary society, the political idiot who prides themselves on their allegiance to a cause, party, or ideology and happily makes themselves useful to such is, it seems, proliferating in number ...

 

Some commentators may clutch their pearls - or even reach for the smelling salts - when they hear the term useful idiot [3], but it's a widely accepted term within political discourse [4] to refer to someone who believes they are fighting for a just cause and have history on their side, without fully appreciating the consequences of their actions or the extent to which they are being cynically manipulated by nefarious forces.  

 

Many supporters of Extinction Rebellion, or Black Lives Matter, or those we currently see larping for Palestine on streets and campuses across the Western world, are probably well-intentioned idealists; i.e., perfectly sincere in their views, but they are politically naive to the point that idiocy hardly even covers it; closing their eyes to reality and shutting their ears to reason, they unwittingly assist in the destruction of their own culture, history, and society.   

 

Notes

 

[1] See Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, trans. Erik Butler, (Verso, 2017). And see also the post 'On Heresy and Philosophical Idiotism' (20 Nov 2021): click here. 

 

[2] Nietzsche famously asserts in Twilight of the Idols (1889) that idleness is the beginning of psychology (and is therefore the result of vice). 

      Oscar Wilde, meanwhile, writing in a Preface to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) claimed: "All art is quite useless." He later explained in a letter what he meant by this: "Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way." Similarly, philosophy is simply intended to open up a space for thinking - nothing else. Wilde's letter can be read in full here. 

 

[3] For those gentle souls who prefer a slightly less harsh-sounding term, it might be noted that some commentators speak of useful innocents, whilst those within the intelligence community apparently refer to unwitting agents.

 

[4] Frequently used during the Cold War to describe those susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation, the phrase useful idiot was (ironically but mistakenly) attributed to Lenin by the Russian human rights activist and Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. Lenin may have liked to use it, but he certainly didn't coin it, and nor is it found in any of his writings.

 

 

Radical Chic: On Puncturing the Fourth Wall of Excess and Spectacle with AOC

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her 

Tax the Rich dress (Met Gala 2021)  

 

 

One of the results of the conjunction between politics and fashion is the sloganised garment. 

 

That is to say, an item of clothing printed or painted with an ideological statement in the (magical) belief that the right few words can help bring about social and cultural change (or, at the very least, piss a few people off).  

Hugely influenced by the designs of McLaren and Westwood - and members of the Clash on the sleeve of White Riot - I used to buy into this belief myself and would regularly paint punk-situationist slogans on the clothes I wore: click here.

 

But when Katharine Hamnett started producing her line of oversized politically-correct t-shirts - Save the World, Choose Life, etc. - it was clear that a once genuinely provocative practice had become purely an exercise in virtue signalling.   

 

And here in 2021, at the 75th annual Met Gala, things reached a depressing new low when Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez appeared in a couture white gown designed by Aurora James (creative director and founder of luxury brand ​​Brother Vellies) emblazoned with the words Tax the Rich in large red letters. 

 

For this wasn't a political use of fashion, but a fashionable use of politics and it doesn't make AOC an anti-capitalist icon bravely confronting the wealthy at their own event - minimum ticket price $30,000 - it makes her a clown invited for their amusement. Whilst she posed for pictures, protestors from Black Lives Matter were (literally) being arrested in the streets outside.  

 

Defending her decision to attend the Gala and wear the dress, AOC claimed on Instagram that she had not only started a conversation about taxing the rich, but 'punctured the fourth wall of excess and spectacle', which is a rather lovely sentence, albeit one that reveals the depth of her pomposity and self-delusion. 

 

One thinks back, in closing, to that marvellous term coined by Tom Wolfe in an essay from fifty years ago - radical chic - to describe the adoption and promotion of trendy left-wing political causes made by numerous celebrities, socialites, and intellectuals ... [1]

 

Unlike actual militants and real-life revolutionaries, those parading their radical chic are mostly interested in advancing their own position and being seen to be what we now describe as woke. It is, ultimately, a form of decadence - and insulting to the very people on whose behalf they claim to speak [2].      

 

 

Notes

[1] See Tom Wolfe, 'Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's', New York (June 8, 1970): click here to read online. 

      The above essay can also be found in Wolfe's Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970) and/or The Purple Decades, (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1982). 

    

[2] Just to be clear: as much as the hypocrisy of someone like OAC can be galling, I'm not writing here in support of actual militants and/or real-life revolutionaries - i.e., the kind of political ascetics and terrorists of ideology who resort to violence in order to achieve their aims and impose their beliefs.

 

For a sister post to this one on whether we should tax the rich, eat the rich, or kill the poor, click here.     

New Year's Eve 2020: Fireworks, Propaganda, and an Avian Mortality Event

 

Picture credits: BBC News / IOPA Facebook

 

 

I have already expressed my reservations regarding New Year's Eve fireworks in a post entitled Panem et Pyrotechnics - namely, that they make North Koreans of us all. 

 

This opinion was reinforced a few days ago, when that idiotic little weasel posing as the Mayor of London, Mr. Sadiq Khan, decided to light up the night sky above the Millennium Dome with a clenched fist symbol in support of Black Lives Matter. 

 

The locked down masses prohibited from attending the event in person - because of the virus - were, thanks to a complicit state broadcaster, able to enjoy the £1.5 million spectacle (described by some as a virtue signalling political stunt) live on TV and social media.    

 

Other highlights of the show included the turning of London's bridges blue and yellow with lasers on the eve that the Brexit transition period ended and the UK finally left the EU, and 300 drones forming the shape of a giant turtle with a map of Africa on its shell to express concern about the so-called climate crisis. 

 

As provocative and divisive as this was, it didn't have the heartbreaking horror of events in Rome, where a New Year's Eve firework display resulted in the deaths of hundreds of birds, mostly starlings, that were roosting nearby. 

 

Footage filmed from outside the city's main train station, showed the bodies of the birds littering the streets, as some reports insensitively described the scene, as if they were just feathered pieces of trash waiting to be swept away and their lives didn't matter.

 

A spokesperson for the Italian branch of the International Organisation for the Protection of Animals claimed that the poor things were essentially scared to death by the fireworks and although the RSPB claims that there is little evidence to suggest that fireworks present a grave danger to wild birds, I do not believe them and would challenge their record of protecting birds over the last 50 years when avian numbers have (in some cases dramatically) declined.

 

 

You Say You Want a Revolution ...?

I.

Initially, Black Lives Matter was a civil rights movement for a younger, angrier, more woke generation of activists and campaigners concerned about issues to do with racial justice and equality. But it seems to now be in the vanguard of a broader movement demanding a full-scale cultural revolution and an end to what they perceive to be a violently oppressive and institutionally racist old order.

Of course, we've seen this call for a total transformation of everyday life (and the subsequent humiliation or destruction of one's enemies) before: in Hitler's Germany in the 1930s, for example; and, more recently, in Mao's China in the 1960s.

It wasn't pleasant then and it isn't pleasant now. Nor do I think it's going to end any happier. Restrictions on freedom of speech and the insistence that everyone toe the politically correct line or face the consequences, never do. Nor do attempts to sanitise the past and purge society of undesirable elements. 

To protest and to rebel may be justified; and, doubtless, there are many old habits, customs, and ideas that need to be challenged. But to destroy works of art and historical artefacts in the name of an ideology that believes itself to be infallible and morally superior is something we should be extremely wary of.

For I think the poet Heinrich Heine was right in 1820 and he's still right now, two hundred years later: Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people. To their credit, even The Beatles understood this; as their counter-revolutionary track 'Revolution' demonstrates ...


II.

Inspired by anti-war protests and student uprisings, John Lennon's lyrics express sympathy with the need for radical social change, but serious reservations over the violent tactics adopted by some on the so-called New Left. The song concludes that there's no need for direct action as everything's gonna be alright (that is to say, ideals of peace and love will triumph in the end). It also explicitly dismisses the cult of personality surrounding Chairman Mao.

Of course, countercultural comrades and hardline communists of every variety immediately branded Lennon a traitor and collaborator. They were shocked not only by his Transcendental fatalism, but by his humour and expressed need to see details (or a plan) for how a revolution might work. The New Left Review dismissed the song as a 'lamentable petty bourgeois cry of fear' and even the French film director Jean-Luc Godard denounced the Beatle for his apoliticism and suggested that he and other band members had been corrupted by money.

Duly chastened by the criticism he received, Lennon subsequently declared himself to be a revolutionary after all. However, in an interview shortly before his death in 1980, he again voiced his rejection of political violence and terror and reaffirmed the more pacifist sentiments expressed in 'Revolution': 'Don't expect me on the barricades unless it's with flowers.'           

To be honest, I don't have much affection for Lennon. But I admire the stand he took here and his scorn for the militant asceticism and extremer than thou snobbery of those on the far left openly motivated by resentment and hatred. And I think that those who call naively for revolution today and pose with clenched fists held aloft, should stop to consider that they ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow ...

Play: The Beatles, 'Revolution', B-side to the single release 'Hey Jude', (Apple, 26 August 1968): click here.

Note: the above promo film, dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was first broadcast on Top of the Pops (BBC One) on 19 September, 1968. 

See: Daniel Chirot, You Say You Want a Revolution?, (Princeton University Press, 2020). In this new study, Chirot - a Professor of Russian and Eurasian studies at the University of Washington - examines why most modern revolutions have ended in bloodshed and failure and what lessons they hold for today's world of growing extremism. The image above is from the front cover to this text.

On Atrocious Aspects of African History

Slaves awaiting sacrifice 

The History of Dahomy (1793)

Whisper it quietly, unless you want a torrent of vile abuse, but slavery was not an invention of evil white devils in the 16th century ...

In fact, slavery, in various forms, was widespread in Africa as an indigenous cultural practice long before the British, Portuguese, French, Dutch, and Spanish ever set foot on the Dark Continent - and it still continues today in countries including Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger, and Sudan (although this is rarely mentioned by those who like to take hammers to statues). 

Thus, when the Atlantic slave trade began, it was able to draw upon the extensive knowledge and experience of pre-existing systems and local slave traders were keen to supply the new external markets with men, women and children; some historians estimate that around 90% of those sold to European traders for export to the New World were initially captured and enslaved by their fellow Africans.

In 2010, the hugely respected literary critic and scholar Henry Louis Gates argued in a controversial opinion piece for The New York Times that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders [...] the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred" [1].

It might also be noted that when the Atlantic slave trade ceased in the 19th century - thanks in no small part to the efforts of abolitionists in the UK such as William Wilberforce - many African states reoriented their economies towards legitimate commerce whilst continuing to exploit slave labour.

I suppose for many BLM activists and their allies who wish to oppose racism and make amends for historical evils as they perceive them, this is something of an inconvenient truth. And, equally inconvenient, is the fact that, in addition to slavery, the unsavoury practice of human sacrifice was also common - particularly in West Africa - well into the 19th century.

Thus it is, for example, that in the Kingdom of Dahomey, a large annual festival was held during which enslaved prisoners, who had either been captured on the battlefield or abducted during organised raids, were ceremoniously slaughtered. Usually, around 500 prisoners died each year in this way, but in 1727 it was reported that as many as 4000 were beheaded in order to venerate the spirits of ancestors (decapitation being the traditional method of execution).

The point - as recognised by Gates - is this: we need to dissolve the binary that allows a morally naive and simplistic reading of the past in terms of wicked white perpetrators and innocent black victims.
     

Notes

[1] Henry Louis Gates Jr., 'Ending the Slavery Blame-Game', The New York Times (22 April, 2010): click here to read online.
     
This post was written in response to an iconoclastic supporter of Black Lives Matter, who asserted that my silence on this blog concerning recent events in Minneapolis made me complicit with racism and suggested that I educate myself on black history.   

They Don't Shoot White Women Like Me ...

Photo by Alex Klavens: 

Protestor at a Black Lives Matter event

Boston, MA (4 Dec 2014)

Someone I used to know back in the day has recently got in touch after a thirty year hiatus in our friendship, during which time she's been married and divorced, raised a brat and battled cancer, whilst, it seems, all the time holding true to the radical ideals of social justice and equality that shaped her youth. Indeed, she tells me that she has been re-energized politically by Jeremy Corbyn.   

In the distant, punky-reggae past she was involved in all kind of things, including Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. I don't know who she loved more; Joe Strummer, whom she wanted to fuck; or Nelson Mandela, whom she wanted to free. 

And today, it's still black issues that seem to exercise her most - even though she is herself lily-white and from a privileged, privately educated background. She forgets, I suspect, that this was one of the things that originally caused friction between us, as I grew increasingly impatient with her and those like her who - to paraphrase Jello Biafra - play ethnicky jazz to parade their snazz on their five grand stereos / bragging that they know how the ghettos feel cold and the slums have so much soul. 

I don't know why she does this. I think in part she genuinely cares about the issues and the people she champions. But I suspect she's also trying to enhance her own reputation and self-esteem. Whatever the reason, it irritated me then and it irritates me now, so I won't be renewing our friendship ...

As for black lives ... well, yes, of course, Black Lives Matter. But they matter more to her than to me.

And, without getting all Rod Liddle about this - or playing a game of diversionary tactics - I do wonder if the focus of such a campaign shouldn't be on crime, drug use, gang culture, etc. rather than institutionalised white racism and police brutality. 

The latter are doubtless realities that need to be addressed; as do issues of poverty and poor education. But to deliberately whip up anger and resentment whilst turning a blind eye to the involvement of young black men in the former activities, isn't helpful and isn't honest.      


Note: The lyric I'm quoting (from memory and with slight revision) by Jello Biafra is from Holiday in Cambodia (1980), by the great American punk band the Dead Kennedys: click here to play on YouTube.