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They’ve found a new Robert Frost! “Nothing New” 📝
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Fascism vs. liberalism
John Ganz, in his Unpopular Front post Gold and Brown, in a long but exceptionally well put quote (emphases mine):
[T]he fascist ego and the radical, “anarchist” libertarian ego are identical on a structural level, that is to say, they are the same form of subjectivity in different moments. That is not to say that every single fascist is a libertarian or vice versa, or that they exactly have the same psychological origin story. What they both share is a fundamental misrecognition of the Other: the other is just a thing, some material for exploitation or domination. As such, they cannot understand and fundamentally distrust anything that doesn’t openly declare a relation between self and others that is non-exploitative or based on non-domination. They both cannot recognize any universal interest, only the wars and temporary alliances of particular interests, be they individuals, nations, or races. … Libertarians like to say, “Well, we hate the state, while fascists worship the state.” But this is merely a semantic game. The state as fascists understand it is not the state as liberals and socialists understand it: as the sphere where pluralistic, particular interests are reconciled for the general good. They have no such ideal. They view the state instead as a crude vehicle or weapon for the movement or the race. And neither have any conception of “citizenship” as conventionally understood, a set of inalienable rights: citizenship is a mutable and revocable thing like employment, based on the notion of one’s productive contribution to the whole.
The next time someone asks me to explain why fascism is evil, and why some forms of libertarianism approach this evil, this is what I’m pointing them to. 💬
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A little surprise joy left in a corner of my local bakery. I like to think it was accidentally left behind, and when the owner realized this, let it go with the wish that it would bring some whimsy to everyone’s life. 📸 🎨
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Emily Jane White - Hole In The Middle
This song is echoing in my skull these days, in reaction to the fallout of Trump regaining power.
Everybody’s got a little hole in the middle Everybody does a little dance with the devil And you know I’m evil now, And you shout it loud and proud Singing born in the U.S.A
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The entrance to the Revival Cafe in Somerville. 📸
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Well, after weeks of artfully evading the holiday crud, it surprised and tackled me. Damnit.
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It’s 2025!
I have no hopes for the new year. I’m trying to keep in mind Merton’s advice from Letters to a Young Activist:
[D]o not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on […], you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end, as you yourself mention in passing, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.
Merton was talking about sustaining one’s focus and resolve in the face of apathy towards the Vietnam War, not facing down what I will do in this new year. The advice rings true, all the same: “Do not depend on hope of results.” Whether or not I achieve my goals, I will wake up and try my best to live by my principles. The specific people I work for are my friends, my loved ones, and myself.
My only advice to you all this year is: plan your work, make your resolutions, but only devote yourself each day to doing your best by what you value. Good luck out there!
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