F.lux windows 10 flicker1/23/2024 But we are often blind to the symbols, rituals, and modes of communication through which left counterpower is built. We see signs of fascism everywhere, even including where they are not. Many of us use our social media feeds to broadcast these findings, acting as though our most urgent challenge is to find the best proof that fascism has arrived. Beyond the Confederate flag, white nationalists have absorbed into their symbolic lexicon the green frog, the ubiquitous hipster-Nazi haircut, the Hawaiian shirt, and the “OK” hand signal. Critics obsessively track the symbols, subcultures, and dog whistles of white supremacist belonging, amplifying their efficiency in the process. ![]() At the same time, few have trouble seeing how the symbols of white supremacy are a key source of power for the right. Once the capitalists use our symbols, not only do those symbols lose their capacity to challenge power, but they no longer even belong to us.įrom an anti-symbolic position, we recognize that our symbols are efficient only when used against us: as means of quelling militancy, sowing internal divisions, and producing an illusory image of “resistance” in the absence of revolutionary organization. Second, our symbols leave our movements vulnerable to infiltration and subversion by capitalists, who can easily seize and redirect them. Performances often make those of us on the left feel like we’re changing the world, but they mainly function to divert our energy from the real work of transforming the material conditions of oppression. First, when deployed by the left, symbols don’t lead to material transformation. Critics argue that there are at least two problems with the symbolic approach to activism. It tends to draw a sharp distinction between two ways of practicing politics: one that prioritizes direct material intervention as the basis for revolutionary change, and another that wagers on the political efficacy of symbols-repeatable acts, slogans, images, and other forms of action that connect the people who use them to the abstract idea of a specific movement. 1 This genre of writing is a mainstay of left criticism. ![]() Looking back at the slowing energy around the Black Lives Matter movements during the fall, we can see a pattern that is common to so many contemporary movements: a shift from popular revolt to corporate takeover.Ĭorporations’ and mainstream liberals’ widespread use of BLM’s hashtags, chants, and symbolic rituals led to a flood of media arguing that the movement’s symbols had become its Achilles heel. While this was happening, congressional Democrats took a knee the street in front of the White House was renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza letters of “solidarity” from universities, museums, major corporations, and small businesses cluttered the web. These uprisings came in the form of highway blockades, port shutdowns, unsanctioned monument removals, torched cop cars, and Minneapolis’s Third Police Precinct being burned to the ground. The brutal police killing of George Floyd earlier this year spurred uprisings in cities across the US.
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