The end of the Cold War and ideological confusion

1. CHAPTER 6: The end of the Cold War and ideological confusion (2).

© G. Ostretsov - Engineers of the Human Soul

2. 6. Populism, new authoritarianism and post-truth

Populism
- 'nationalizes' and 'culturalizes'
democracy
- Nativism, democracy = “our
DNA”
- Freedom = "for us," others do
not belong to "us”
- Welfare chauvinism

3. 6. Populism, new authoritarianism and post-truth

Populism
- New authoritarianism
- Resistance to globalization ≠ antineoliberal
- More for ‘us’... but who is ‘us’? (cf.
Trump)
- 'Cultural' threats?
- Progressive neoliberalism?
- Cf. Nancy Fraser

4. 6. Populism, new authoritarianism and post-truth

Post Truth
- Appeals to emotions, even
against obvious facts.
- Origins subject of discussion
- Postmodernism, deconstruction
(Derrida)
- Science Wars - The Sokal Hoax.

5. 6. Populism, new authoritarianism and post-truth

Post Truth
- Progressive emancipatory
beginnings were taken over by
conservatism, the right and the
extreme right.
- Denial of science.
- Attack science → pay own 'experts'
→ argue that issue is 'controversial'
→ demand that 'both camps' be
covered in media
- Fake news, misinformation,...
(e.g., Steve Bannon's Breitbart)

6. 7. Neocons, alt-right and new far right

Neoconservatism
- 1970s US
- Inspired by Leo Strauss
- Liberalism encourages freedom
over virtue = form of nihilism =
core of the problem of political
modernity
- Politics needs powerful
foundation

7. 7. Neocons, alt-right and new far right

Neoconservatism US
- Away from tradition of Burke
- Fundament liberalism =
Christian (Protestant) values.
- Politics = form of war in which
ideology is a weapon.
- Lower classes "must fall in line,"
elite leads.

8. 7. Neocons, alt-right and new far right

Neoconservatism US
- Can go hand in hand, but not
necessarily, with neoliberalism.
- Supremacy of the American Way
of Life
- Against international rule of law if
interests of US are not served
- Conservative emphasis on
national unity
- War & Power

9. 7. Neocons, alt-right and new far right

Neoconservatism US
- War = a means for the ‘good’ to
prevail.
- Facts less important than
‘feeling’ of doing the right thing.
- Illegal War in Iraq (2003)
- Based on lies
- Negligent consequences: alQaeda not defeated + IS created
(the neo-colonial boomerang)

10. 7. Neocons, alt-right and new far right

Neoconservatism in Europe
Extreme Right Form
Alain De Benoist
- Nouvelle droite
- Reaffirm French/European identity
- Traditional values
- Against human rights, free market
and Christian heritage
- Importance of metapolitics (Gramsci)
- GRECE

11. 7. Neocons, alt-right and new far right

Neoconservatism Europe
- Metapolitics 2.0 (Ico Maly)
- Social media & algorithms
- Cultural conquest tour against
'cultural Marxism'
- Alexander Dugin
- Eurasian traditional fascism
against US and against Islam
- Génération Identitaire
- New fascism? Neofascism?
Postfascism?

12. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Steven Pinker
- Enlightenment Now
- Progress since the
Enlightenment through reason,
science and humanism
- Optimism
- Where does progress come
from?
- A "mysterious arc"?

13. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Steven Pinker
- History without human subject,
without struggle for progress...
without politics
- Ideologies = pessimism = wrong
policies
- Capitalism & globalization =
good
- Risks & hazards will disappear
- Scientism

14. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Depoliticization development
- Does the humanitarian worker
and/or human rights activist
replace the political struggle?
- Criticism of IMF & WB
Joseph Stiglitz
- Globalization and its
discontents
- Is aid even efficient?

15. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Depoliticization development
Amartya Sen
- Freedom is progress
- Progress & development only
possible if there is freedom.
- Poverty = lack of opportunity (≠
income alone)
- Freedom, the ability to live the life
you want.
- Is inherently political, economic
and social.

16. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Alterglobalism
- Pluralistic, fragmented, group of
organizations.
- Different goals (debt, ecology,
pollution, access to land,...).
- Common: fight for a more just
world.

17. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Thomas Piketty
Le capital au XXIe siècle
- Since the 1990s, inequality has
been growing.
- Hypercapitalism =
concentration of wealth in the
hands of 'a few'.
- New "progressive" form of
taxation is needed.

18. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Thomas Piketty
Capitalism & Idéology
- Progress not through capital per
se but through the struggle for
equality & access to education.
- Hypercapitalist inequality =
dismantling Keynesian welfare
state = new socio-economic and
political fault lines.

19. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Thomas Piketty
Capitalism & Idéology
- New 'class struggle'.
- Multiple elites: la gauche brahmane
& la droite marchande
- Workers, lower classes, part selfemployed,.... No benefit from
globalization and hypercapitalism
- Populism & social nativism
- For a participatory socialism

20. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Communism... a return?
Slavoj Zizek
- Financial crisis = recoding
capitalism.
- 'Corporate Social Responsibility'
& ecological awareness to save
capitalism =
- de-ideologization
- Technical 'solutions' to political
issues

21. 8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality

8. Progress optimism, realism & inequality
Communism... a return?
Slavoj Zizek
- Liberalism and socialism have
no alternative to the challenges.
- Communism = overcoming the
issue of 'property' in the idea of
the 'commons'.
- Idea of communism (cf. Alain
Badiou)

22. 9. Ecology, climate and nature

- Fundamental critique of
classical ideologies (human
control and exploitation of
nature)
- The Anthropocene
- Influence of humans on the planet
affects not only life on earth but
the possibility of life itself

23. 9. Ecology, climate and nature

Dipesh Chakrabarty
- Classical visions of freedom,
equality & justice challenged by
the 'limits of nature'
- Nature has a history
- Anthropocene consequence of
capital accumulation

24. 9. Ecology, climate and nature

Ecologism
- Against belief in unbridled growth.
- Protection nature but also new
human relationships (D.
Holemans).
- Human autonomy needed for
emancipation. Emancipation and
freedom in relationship with
others, away from selfishness,
individualism and collectivism

25. 10. Big Data, Big Brother

Shoshana Zuboff
- Digital revolution = new phase
capitalism.
- Tech business claims human
experience as "raw material" for
data that create money.
- Danger: monitoring, controlling,
influencing behavior
(nudging,...)

26. 10. Big Data, Big Brother

Shoshana Zuboff
- Surveillance Capitalism
- Threat to human nature (as
industrial revolution threatened
nature)
- New modernity
- Instrumental power
- Hollowing out freedom