Planet Platonic


"The first conclusion to be drawn from the riots, therefore, is that both conservative and liberal reactions to the unrest are inadequate. The conservative reaction was predictable: there is no justification for such vandalism; one should use all necessary means to restore order; to prevent further explosions of this kind we need not more tolerance and social help but more discipline, hard work and a sense of responsibility. What’s wrong with this account is not only that it ignores the desperate social situation pushing young people towards violent outbursts but, perhaps more important, that it ignores the way these outbursts echo the hidden premises of conservative ideology itself. When, in the 1990s, the Conservatives launched their ‘back to basics’ campaign, its obscene complement was revealed by Norman Tebbitt: ‘Man is not just a social but also a territorial animal; it must be part of our agenda to satisfy those basic instincts of tribalism and territoriality.’ This is what ‘back to basics’ was really about: the unleashing of the barbarian who lurked beneath our apparently civilised, bourgeois society, through the satisfying of the barbarian’s ‘basic instincts’. In the 1960s, Herbert Marcuse introduced the concept of ‘repressive desublimation’ to explain the ‘sexual revolution’: human drives could be desublimated, allowed free rein, and still be subject to capitalist control – viz, the porn industry. On British streets during the unrest, what we saw was not men reduced to ‘beasts’, but the stripped-down form of the ‘beast’ produced by capitalist ideology."
  1. ikeeelyoupftphewphewphew reblogged this from fuckyeahanarchopunk
  2. red-dumpling reblogged this from r-i-o-t
  3. alienzz-z reblogged this from fuckyeahanarchopunk
  4. hotdoge reblogged this from laughsaidthehippyman
  5. laughsaidthehippyman reblogged this from r-i-o-t
  6. rachenzeraetzung reblogged this from ommegang
  7. silas216 reblogged this from azspot
  8. locomotives reblogged this from strontiumgirlcommando
  9. strontiumgirlcommando reblogged this from socialisimo
  10. reaktivo reblogged this from fuckyeahanarchopunk
  11. capnjazzercise reblogged this from socialisimo
  12. picardwouldtotallyrulekirk reblogged this from socialisimo and added:
    Zizek get’s a little too much credit, in my opinion. But he is still a clever, clever man.
  13. martlayton reblogged this from socialisimo
  14. motzn reblogged this from socialisimo
  15. camomiletea reblogged this from tahlalaliaaa
  16. psychedelicology reblogged this from fuckyeahanarchopunk
  17. philosophy-of-praxis reblogged this from socialisimo
  18. zeropointnine reblogged this from socialisimo and added:
    Excellent quote from Norman Tebbit here. ‘Man is not just a social but also a territorial animal; it must be part of our...
  19. societycreatedme reblogged this from fuckyeahanarchopunk
  20. stan-derd reblogged this from socialisimo
  21. socialisimo reblogged this from tahlalaliaaa