It's Hip to be Square: On the Politics of No-stalgia
No-stalgia? Is that a concept? Yes, and Roberts applies it to the veering towards reactionary ideas of our culture.
It is a dreadful thing that I often have the epiphany of a great title before I have the idea of what to write beneath it. Of course, this is frustrating--until I realize that the title exists like sensors; if I go too far off, it sings out in warning.
At the moment, the fanciful title that I am now producing words for is 'It's Hip To Be Square'. Yes, like the song title. Yes, that song from that movie; it has taken near superhuman strength for me not to begin the article, or add in at any point, with 'Hey Paul!', like some retro call back.
Don't tempt me; I still might. The Wise Hack knows no depth to their shallowness.
But to the essay; what is this about? Well, at the very bottom of it all is the crankiness of myself (as are all my essays; my virtue is that I hate everything) as I watch this and that podcaster, popular writer, and numbskull turn people towards the 'traditional'; you know traditions--peer pressure from the dead. There are people who, taking advantage of the fears of the populace of a dying empire, have decided to turn us towards traditions. Defend the family, they shout! Say no to drinking, to masturbation (Norman Mailer? Is that you?), to drugs! And to top it off, many of them want us to talk about God; either the mythical one who was a secret pre-Marx radical, or the abstract one who can be found in the moon-struck theorems of the hacks of academe.
Of course, this is conservative piffle--although to call it 'conservative' offers a dignity this reactionary knee-jerk does not deserve. When they say 'the past', they mean 'the last decade'. Or, more accurately, they mean the ideas of the last decade about the soi-disant 'past'. What most people refuse to admit about the human animal is that it is one formed near-entirely by its fictions, not by facts. Between granola hippies and astral amateurs and psy-op paranoids, we are told that the human being has some natural instinct for truth--or, to quote Doug Henwood's bêtise of the Freudians in a tweet, that 'truth wills out'. This is nonsense. It is, oh the irony, the central fiction of the delusional who make up the Twitterati (or X-erati…no no, let us not).
There is always a 'but why' that comes with this statement of mine--often right before the accusations of 'postmodernism' are hurled my way (poor postmodernists--like members of an Arkansas dating app, it's all relative). Why am I sure of this? Will Self aptly noted once, in one of his drawling monographs for the BBC, that the great drug of our era is nostalgia--except, as he says, it is not nostalgia, but 'no-stalgia'. That is, we do not desire some past we belonged to, we desire the idea of that past, which is not real--unlike the do-gooders and optimists who tell you that the truth wills out, science tells us that we never remember an event, we only remember the last time we remembered it. ‘The past’ is our past, and our past is only an idea, remembered.
**
And so, here we are, full circle; the past, traditions, God, the good old days. As the future of the empire becomes more insecure, the offers of security become more absurd. You see any resistance to what once was clamored against; even the socialists and Marxists are doing it. A whole faction of Marxists has been born and branded in this vein; the proverbial burgers of the branded cows they are, clogging much needed arteries. From the adenoidal cloistered Platypus to Sublation Magazine (Doug Lain’s second, sinking, flag ship) to Compact, one has seen the rise of self-proclaimed 'conservative Marxists'; by any other name, they would be noted as fools. But throw in a little Marx, some 'dialectical this' and 'class warfare that' and you have a finely arrogant, vainglorious nerdery of people who think 'subversive' means appealing to the lowest common denominator and the dumbest ideas.
They have their right-wing counterparts--MAGA Communists (whom Compact's Thomas Fazi swooned over), to take the goofiest example. They pop up in other arguments, such as 'Promethean Marxists' in debates about 'de-growth' and climate change; a phrase which proves their 'conservative' label false--they have no understanding of history. They come forth and tell us we can jet-set our way out of this climate change, showing our appreciation for 'modernism' or modernity or…well, they love to throw words around. Technology, they believe, will save us--in truth, 'technology' means their idea of what they think technology is, not anything real; or, to do a pick up language game here, anything 'material'.
I ran into one of these folks, virtually; Ashley Frawley, Editor at Sublation (similar to being the navigator of the Titanic) and Professor of Yoga for the left-podcast world, made mention of the 'abolish the family' movement--so much like a right-winger, to make the decay of capitalism into secret, evil elves who pitter patter behind the scenes and make things bad. Of this movement, she wrote:
'"Abolish the family" is like "own nothing and be happy" for its communisation of neoliberal dispossession.'
Weird jargon? Check. Bad analogy? Check. Sweeping generalizations? Check. Of course, I mocked this and, in response, I was offered a barn's worth of straw men and the snark of a lobotomized teenager. But here's the rub: Vin Diesel here is selling us on an idea of 'family'--one that has not ever existed. And when responded to, a pivot is made; do you not trust the 'working class parents'? Suddenly, it is not about the decay of the family under capitalism, or the fact the American family has always been an economic unit, or the fear Frawley has for Sophie Lewis. All of this is swept away; there's a top hat, and out of it is pulled an argument for 'trust'. From the absurd to the primitive, from 'communisation of neoliberal dispossession' (writing that is like chewing screws) to 'people tend to distrust working class parents', from 'family' to 'trust'.
From no-stalgia to nostalgia.
The particulars of Frawley’s point aren’t much to talk about. Should we trust working class parents? No—in fact, trusting any parent is something one should show skepticism towards. Pushing out a child does not bestow upon anyone a magical sense of judgment, righteousness, or dignity. You are still a human—and, therefore, still suspect. Nevermind that no one, not even the dreaded Sophie Lewis, is saying any such thing about distrusting parents. I am, though.
Why abolish the family? For the same reason you tear down a building with unsafe structures; to rebuild it in a better way. Going back to the family of Leave It To Beaver only gives us a malformation that will malform us. Families are economic units; if these Marxists believe economies can change, why not families?
Tune in next week, as Frawley tweets the answer to us.
**
The people selling you on 'traditions' today; modernism, family, religion, the 'Old Left' or 'New Left' or History with a capital H are not selling you facts or truths. They are not taking the wool off your eyes, they are adding sunglasses on the outside of it. They are taking advantage of the fact that we are our own greatest propagandists. They are selling us fictions as truths, delusions as illusions, ideas as traditions. They are puppeteers of embarrassment, sleight-of-mind commentators, crusading fools and missionaries of malapropisms.
And, if you subscribe now, you can come with them to the Parrot Room [I forget the name of this Patreon phenomenon] or join the This is Revolution crew as they talk about their favorite Star Wars action figures and Warhammer 40k strategies. Join them in their ornery onanism and show some solidarity with the circle jerk--I mean, with 'the movement'! You might get a reach around--they are called shout-outs now, so I hear? You might win a die hard simp who, when you rattle off some reactionary bit about transgender folk, will have you come onto a debate show and swing your bleach blonde hair about as they tell you that you did and said nothing wrong--ever. Then you can write an article about the 'trans lobby' that you are sure lurks in the shadows, imagining for us a better world! A different world! A world of the past! A world of your past. A world--well, what was it Schopenhauer said? We take the limit of our field of vision as the limit of the world; and, it seems, to the Philistine, it is the limit of their ideas which act as the limit of history. I guess it's hip to be square now.
Hey Paul!
As a millenial this makes a lot of sense. We seem to be sold nostalgia constantly and yearn for this version of the past we’ve romanticized that in reality wasn’t all we made it out to be. So it makes sense that people would do this with political ideologies/philosophers.
Interesting piece, nice writing.