This is exactly what people expect of the environmentalists, and for good reason. The Democrats are only good at one thing: saying one thing, then doing another. And the environmentalists are only good at enabling them. If you've ever wondered why that is, you might be interested in my take: https://thespouter.substack.com/p/the-dialectics-of-liberal-environmentalism
Yes! It's a good rundown of fossil fascism but lets liberals off the hook... Easy to blame the far right, but the eagerness of Biden & his ideological kin to expand FFs is, as I see it, the core of the issue. I also have a grudge against Malm for his dismissal of vital materialism/animism/panpsychism: https://thespouter.substack.com/p/footnotes-to-apocon-article?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 .
I also think it's dumb to publish a book "How to Blow Up A Pipeline" and then not go blow up a pipeline. Propaganda of THE DEED, my dude.
I don't think it lets liberals off the hook at all - they mostly use the term fossil capital to describe neoliberalism. A lot of the book describes how the governing coalitions in Europe are explicitly liberal+ecofascist.
But I also am not much of a philosopher so I'm happy to let you all deeper thinkers battle it out :)
I haven't corresponded with Malm -- it hadn't occurred to me, really, since I tend to reach out to authors that I really like. Even though you're not a philosopher, I hope you'll indulge me to a limited degree:
I'm not saying he ignores liberals entirely, but that he's missing a piece of the dialectic. In the book, he says
"In one respect, however, the denialist ISA [ideological state institution, a Marxist idea] presents a challenge to Marxist theories of ideology. Ever since Georg Lukas and Antonio Gramsci, such theories have worked on the assumption that the most effective bourgeois ideology is the one least obvious and ostentatious in its class bias, inconspicuous enough to sink into popular consciousness as the normal way of doing things... But original climate denialism looks as though someone had striven for the most overdrawn caricature of that model and staged a mock play of material interests paying for ideas."
He should have then paused and re-evaluated his argument, because as he says, ISAs work without calling attention to themselves *as ideology,* as a rule. So perhaps "original climate denialism" was calculated not to serve as its own ISA, but to determine the terms for the real Ideological State Apparatus: the ideas that cohered under the term "environmentalism" -- those who arose to oppose the obviously-corrupt deniers. If those people are Communists, then the oil companies have a REAL problem, because we are looking to violently expropriate their property.* But if those people are fundamentally compatible with Capitalism, then it's just a question of haggling over government regulations. Denialism created a context in which environmentalism could masquerade as NON-IDEOLOGICAL, as "just science." And that is the signature of a real ISA: something that becomes so fundamental to our perceptions that it becomes extremely difficult to call out and oppose.
(*There are other historical reasons why there weren't Communists available to oppose the deniers in their moment, obviously.)
This is exactly what people expect of the environmentalists, and for good reason. The Democrats are only good at one thing: saying one thing, then doing another. And the environmentalists are only good at enabling them. If you've ever wondered why that is, you might be interested in my take: https://thespouter.substack.com/p/the-dialectics-of-liberal-environmentalism
Have you read White Skin, Black Fuel?
Yes! It's a good rundown of fossil fascism but lets liberals off the hook... Easy to blame the far right, but the eagerness of Biden & his ideological kin to expand FFs is, as I see it, the core of the issue. I also have a grudge against Malm for his dismissal of vital materialism/animism/panpsychism: https://thespouter.substack.com/p/footnotes-to-apocon-article?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 .
I also think it's dumb to publish a book "How to Blow Up A Pipeline" and then not go blow up a pipeline. Propaganda of THE DEED, my dude.
I don't think it lets liberals off the hook at all - they mostly use the term fossil capital to describe neoliberalism. A lot of the book describes how the governing coalitions in Europe are explicitly liberal+ecofascist.
But I also am not much of a philosopher so I'm happy to let you all deeper thinkers battle it out :)
Have you corresponded with Malm?
I haven't corresponded with Malm -- it hadn't occurred to me, really, since I tend to reach out to authors that I really like. Even though you're not a philosopher, I hope you'll indulge me to a limited degree:
I'm not saying he ignores liberals entirely, but that he's missing a piece of the dialectic. In the book, he says
"In one respect, however, the denialist ISA [ideological state institution, a Marxist idea] presents a challenge to Marxist theories of ideology. Ever since Georg Lukas and Antonio Gramsci, such theories have worked on the assumption that the most effective bourgeois ideology is the one least obvious and ostentatious in its class bias, inconspicuous enough to sink into popular consciousness as the normal way of doing things... But original climate denialism looks as though someone had striven for the most overdrawn caricature of that model and staged a mock play of material interests paying for ideas."
He should have then paused and re-evaluated his argument, because as he says, ISAs work without calling attention to themselves *as ideology,* as a rule. So perhaps "original climate denialism" was calculated not to serve as its own ISA, but to determine the terms for the real Ideological State Apparatus: the ideas that cohered under the term "environmentalism" -- those who arose to oppose the obviously-corrupt deniers. If those people are Communists, then the oil companies have a REAL problem, because we are looking to violently expropriate their property.* But if those people are fundamentally compatible with Capitalism, then it's just a question of haggling over government regulations. Denialism created a context in which environmentalism could masquerade as NON-IDEOLOGICAL, as "just science." And that is the signature of a real ISA: something that becomes so fundamental to our perceptions that it becomes extremely difficult to call out and oppose.
(*There are other historical reasons why there weren't Communists available to oppose the deniers in their moment, obviously.)