Who Is IOZ?: All of the People All of the Time

Monday, August 23, 2010

All of the People All of the Time

I just want to point out that the people protesting the "Ground Zero Mosque" are being manipulated by powerful interests who seek to channel popular discontentment into a raving circus sideshow of racial anxiety, an ethnocentric brouhaha that distracts from the destruction of livelihoods, the persistence of disastrous wars, etc. I just want to point out that racism is an invention of the state. The agenda served by the anti-Muslim "controversy" has got fuck-all to do with Islam, or with the preservation of Constitutional rights, or with the privileges of property--at least, not with the priviliges of this particular property in lower Manhattan. It's an error to presume that the state necessarily fears a restive public.

39 comments:

McDuff said...: OK, I'll buy the rest of it. But "racism is an invention of the State"? Say what?; 1:29 PM
StPaulite said...: Racism was built on slavery, not the other way around.

Its ideological nature doesn't make it any less real however.; 1:40 PM
Lysander said...: " It's an error to presume that the state necessarily fears a restive public."

Quite correct. The state fears an INFORMED public. And by the looks if things, the PTB have nothing to worry about.; 2:16 PM
le sans-culottes said...: very good st paulite, you've read your eric williams. but that still doesn't explain how racism is an invention of the state, so much as it is the result of broad social, political, and economic trends that encompass pretty much everything. don't be so monocausal.

Scary how similar what Ioz says about the mosque to what Ron Paul recently wrote:

"In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it. They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars."

http://www.ronpaul.com/2010-08-20/ron-paul-sunshine-patriots-stop-your-demagogy-about-the-nyc-mosque/; 2:26 PM
mds said...: Wow, pantsless, yet another datum indicating that in the case of the Paul family, the falling apple entered a spacewarp that deposited it on a different planet from the tree.; 2:58 PM
lucid said...: That the state is quite happy to manipulate racism does not mean it is the cause.; 3:07 PM
Inkberrow said...: Racism is an invention of the eyes. Then family and friends, and school. The state weighs in where it can.

Like the imaginary "controversy" over Muslims raging right now in all our imaginations, Major Hasan's "Allahu Akbar" battlecry also had "eff-all" to do with Islam. They have to do with what Jews and Christians have said and done, duh.; 3:35 PM
Enron said...: As the idea of race emerged in the Reconquista, Monsieur is not entirely incorrect. Limpieza de sangre, bitches.; 4:13 PM
Anonymous said...: The basic impulse of racism has been around ever since one group of hairless apes noticed something different about that group over there and started wildly extrapolating from that. But I guess we're circularly defining "racism" here for the usual anarchist purposes.; 5:13 PM
Picador said...: The basic impulse of racism has been around ever since one group of hairless apes noticed something different about that group over there and started wildly extrapolating from that. But I guess we're circularly defining "racism" here for the usual anarchist purposes.

Oh, snap! I gotta say I'm with Anonymous here. Seriously? The practice of telling nasty stories about the next tribe over is an invention of the State?; 5:41 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...: Racism was built on slavery, not the other way around.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc?

How about "racism can be rooted in slavery, but also is found originating in fear and ignorance, and therefore in as many ways or ideas as fearful ignorance can manifest itself."

No?

I thought so.

Gotta ignore those inconvenient facts!; 6:00 PM
Michael Dawson said...: Racism is not "an invention of the eyes." It is a doctrine that awaited world-wide sailing/conquest, plus the rise of formalized science. Otherwise, why wasn't Antony repulsed by Cleopatra?

To the extent formalized science was a project of the absolute monarchies and early bourgeois proto-states, OK, it was a state project.

But without the slave trade, science might never have gone there. The private ideological need of the slavedrivers and allied merchants was the taproot of modern racism.; 7:28 PM
Cüneyt said...: "Otherwise, why wasn't Antony repulsed by Cleopatra?"

I like the point you're trying to make, but Antony wasn't revolted by Cleopatra because Italian nobility had absolutely nothing to say detrimental about Greco-Macedonian nobility. It wasn't Cleopatra Schwartz or something. They was both white.

And Inkberrow's post generator settled on the Islamist barracks murders and the racism-is-natural premise! I should have made a bet.; 7:40 PM
Justin said...: I don't know if the state is the root of racism, my guess is that racism is one of those phenomenons that has many root causes, and has feedback loops so that some things are both cause and effect. I.e. the institution of slavery may have been built upon racism and then reinforced racist points of view.

Having said that, the comment that "the basic impulse of racism has been around ever since one group of hairless apes noticed something different about that group over there and started wildly extrapolating from that" is wildly reductive, impossible to know and assumes that as it is is how it always was, and lacking as a refutation of Ioz's racist State. A group of apes who are grouping together and warring with another group of apes implies some kind of leadership hierarchy with leaders scheming to consolidate their power and manipulate others into following them, i.e. a State.; 7:41 PM
Inkberrow said...: Michael D---

Why was Antony not repulsed by Cleopatra? Because she was powerfully sexy. At three years old, it might have been a different story for him.

Cuneyt---

You seem to be under the impression that IOZ's thread-header was about the Gulf oil spill, or Justin Bieber.; 7:55 PM
Cüneyt said...: If the state is everywhere (and I believe it is), then the state made racism.

As it is--and I should say that this is all a glaring side show to what I think IOZ's end point is, which is that the state does not shake at such ridiculous frenzies but rather draws power from them--I'm not sure if the Old Testament, the Laws of Manu, and the ancient Egyptian ethnic codices bear out the basic notion that the modern state is responsible for racism. Seems to come ready installed on humans, but power makes it, like all things, a whole different animal.; 7:56 PM
Cüneyt said...: Oh, Inky, even were IOZ's post about his contraction of Bieber fever, you'd still grumble something about black racists or the barracks shooting.; 8:16 PM
Happy Jack said...: It's an error to presume that the state necessarily fears a restive public.

True, but if the crowds get too large, they might expand uncomfortably close to Wall St.

I imagine that a well-tanned trader doesn't look much different from a falafel vendor.; 9:01 PM
le sans-culottes said...: @ Justin:

This is quite a belaboured understanding of IOZ's original point that racism is an invention of the state.

And you are being similarly reductive and a-historical by saying that " apes warring with another group of apes implies some kind of leadership hierarchy with leaders scheming to consolidate their power and manipulate others into following them."

Why do apes warring with apes imply anything about hierarchical relationships at all?
Why the fuck are we even talking about apes? Have you seen baboon tribes fight? There ain't no leaders in that shit.; 9:08 PM
Justin said...: @le sans-culottes
You are right, that is a belabored take on Ioz's point. I was responding /accepting the other commenter who posted the bit about apes whacking each other. I also assumed that the bit about the 'apes' was a way of referring to early man, not a previous link in evolution. I've seen baboons beating on each other, but I haven't noticed a racial component to it.

But yeah, this whole discussion is pretty tossed. I can't wait until someone snaps and redirects the discussion back to eugenics, like the 100 long comment thread from a week back.; 9:18 PM
Inkberrow said...: Hold a sec, Cuneyt---you're not saying Justin Bieber is a stealth Muslim too, are you?; 9:24 PM
TGGP said...: When I first read this post I was sure that IOZ was engaged in some form of parody and didn't really mean it. The Obama administration are the ones in power who are (rightly or wrongly) going to be held accountable for the state of the economy, and he (to his credit) came out in defense of Rauf's rights (and what threat to the System was on the horizon before this brouhaha shoved its way onto the front page?). Pam Geller is some nutjob with a blog. Even Newt Gingrich isn't in office anymore and I highly doubt will be in the near future. I'm going to have to pull a Will Wilkinson here and accuse you of statolatory, ignoring the imperfections of folks even without the state. I don't argue for striking at the root of the state because I think men to be angels, but the opposite. The coordinating powers of government allow us bastards to be bigger bastards in a worse way.; 10:03 PM
Michael Dawson said...: The Antony and Cleopatra thing, while drawing the usual excuses from those who miss the point, isn't really the whole point I was making. The point is that the Romans hated their enemies, but not racially. If you know your history, the Roman empire included huge numbers of white slaves and a fair number of black and swarthy and otherwise weird governors. As Eric Foner says, no white person has ever been a slave in the Americas.

Therein lies a huge lesson, though the Inkberrows of the world refuse to think about it.; 10:40 PM
Anonymous said...: "'...I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.' I said that..."; 12:51 AM
Anonymous said...: Whatever the reason the anti-Mosque ferver was stirred up, it's still necessary to defend the First Amendment, in spirit as well as the letter of the law.; 1:24 AM
lunch said...: @dawson
a fair number of black and swarthy and otherwise weird governors !
"Otherwise weird" implies that black and swarthy is weird. Do you wanna re-edit?; 6:07 AM
BD said...: "Why do apes warring with apes imply anything about hierarchical relationships at all? Why the fuck are we even talking about apes? Have you seen baboon tribes fight? There ain't no leaders in that shit."

Uhh... 1. Baboons aren't apes. They *are* however hierarchically-organized animals with an incredibly complex social structure. And yes actually, they do have leaders.

2. In terms of *actual* apes, it's hard to generalize. But if we're talking about chimps, our closest relatives, then the same thing goes: incredibly complex hierarchy. And, yes, leaders.

3. Also, humans are (technically) apes.; 6:48 AM
Mr.Fundamental said...: some day all of this will be a wikipedia post.; 8:34 AM
Anonymous said...: Otherwise, why wasn't Antony repulsed by Cleopatra?

I dunno. Why wasn't Thomas Jefferson repulsed by Sally Hemmings? Why wasn't Strom Thurmond repulsed...oh, why am I bothering to argue with Michael Dawson?; 8:53 AM
Bright Eyes said...: Some apes, it seems, are more equal than others.; 9:02 AM
IOZ said...: Someone please mention ant colonies.; 10:57 AM
Inkberrow said...: Michael D.---

Do you think there's an off chance that the Romans considered themselves racially superior to the peoples they conquered and enslaved? Including those with White Skin, like Germans and Brits?

Still, I'll grant you that's a pretty astute factual observation from Foner. There had been some dispute on that score.....; 10:57 AM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...: I know a lot of bloo kollah bubbas 'n' bettys who function as slaves in 2010 America.

Take that, Eric Foner! A Foner boner!; 11:57 AM
BD said...: I don't give a shit about ant colonies. But cher sans-culottes' argument seemed to be that there's no relationship between how apes organize themselves and how humans do, and/or that apes possess no social organization.

The second point is definitively untrue, the first highly debatable. And there's actually an interesting point lurking in Justin's first post, namely: does a collective act of (racial) discrimination imply the prior existence of a social collective and/or state?

Substitute "scapegoating" for "racism" in that question, and you've got René Girard's theory of founding violence with all its attendant questions. (I.e. which came first, violence or the state?) A question which could be (and has been) applied to apes, actually, in interesting ways. But, you know, n/m.; 11:58 AM
mds said...: Dammit, someone's already mentioned ant colonies. Well, regardless, have you noticed that there are red ants, and black ants, but not ants that are both?

... What?

Well, regardless, what about apes? They practice racism. You think it was a coincidence that Son of Kong was an albino?; 12:25 PM
le sans-culottes said...: @ BD:

Where did I say apes posses no social organization?

In case you didn't realize IOZ is having a grand ol laugh at our expense with these stupid naturalistic arguments. (cue the ant colony comment)

Apes could be writing blurghs and drinking fuckin soy-milk lattes for all i care and that I still wouldn't use that as the basis for understanding human behaviour. This appeal to apes is pretty much just the 21-st century version of "state of nature", only now we bowdlerize science, as IOZ once said, in service of that argument instead of philosophical abstractions. Either way, its bullshit.; 2:01 PM
BD said...: I'm certainly aware that IOZ is having a laugh. I'm also aware of the dangers of some sort of biological reductionism. And/yet, I think things like the social structures of chimpanzees *can* actually teach us something: not everything, and not in a fatalistic sense (i.e. no cheap social darwinism), but something. To absolutely discount all connections with our fellow primates is just as rigidly doctrinaire as to derive everything from them; I'd even go so far as to call it hubristic.; 4:16 PM
Cüneyt said...: You bunch of gooks.; 5:46 PM
coach outlet said...: The point is that the Romans hated their enemies, but not racially. If you know your history, the Roman empire included huge numbers of white slaves and a fair number of black and swarthy and otherwise weird governors. As Eric Foner says, no white person has ever been a slave in the Americas.; 12:54 AM

Monday, August 23, 2010

All of the People All of the Time

39 comments:

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