Darko Suvin

Time 2021-09-17 14:24:24

Web Name: Darko Suvin

WebSite: http://darkosuvin.com

ID:195603

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Darko,Suvin,

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First published as “Thoughts within the Coronising Siege” Political Animal Magazine, http://www.politicalanimalmagazine.com/themes/theory/, also utopian-studies-europe.org/coronising; A series of fragments from e-mail debates with comrades during the corona lockdown in March ‘20 and a bit after. Sections: A/ long duration prospects, centrally a further mutation of predatory capitalism; B/ short duration: the rulers’ the toggle between disease control and their profits leads to millions of unnecessary deaths, the need collective self-defense (organising) arises. In Europe, the political and financial bureaucracies centrally safeguard business activities; the timid strengthening of State capacities or palliative measures – limited exemptions from the payment of housing, small sums for the poorest – do not sufficiently guarantee the labour and health of the working people, now or in the future. C/ This changes all: possibly hundreds of millions infected are on the horizon if India and the rest of S. Asia, Africa, and Latin America (and Russia?) are counted. Planning for the working people and its welfare, spurned as communist, must be introduced: the choice is to organise or be ground down into a new slavery plus eco-catastrophe. Global capitalism is not biologically sustainable for the species Homo sapiens.First published as How To Go On” in Socialism Democracy no. 83 (July 2020): The article is divided into On Life and Liberty vs. Capitalism, The Capitalocene Economy of Life (focus on USA and its poor majority), The Political Economy of Vaccines, Upper-class Encroachments on Civil Liberties, and proposals for alternativesKeywords: Jodi Dean,comrade, communism, communist party, discipline, messianism, cognition, exemplaFirst published as Jodi Dean’sComrade” (review article) in Socialism Democracy no. 83 (July 2020): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080 08854300 .2020.18052631/ A necrological look back at PM’s writings and how I encountered them as old friend, with stress on those written after the fall of SFR Yugoslavia, about the “ex” world and what values remain (as in Mediterranean Breviary, The Other Venice, and Daily Bread); 2/ review of a booklet by Tommaso di Francesco, Breviario jugoslavo, 2018, of interviews with PM on ex-Yugoslav affairs curing 20’ years, the main point being that the sins of successors much surpass those of SFR YugoslaviaKeywords: Capitalocene; utopia; antiutopia; ecocide; totality; epistemology; counterrevolution; violenceOrwell, as he himself said, came from a lower, professional service fraction of the English and imperial ruling class that was “simultaneously dominator and dominated” (R. Williams), so that a combination of State and monopoly power became his major nightmare. His horizon was as of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 a revolutionary socialism committed to freedom and equality, opposed both to Labourite social-democracy and to Stalinist pseudo-communism.I concentrate on 1984, drawing on narratology (its agential system, spacetime descriptions, and composition “the Winston story,” the “Goldstein excerpts,” and the Appendix on Newspeak) and historical lessons. I conclude that 1984 has an interesting but limited “Tory anarchist” stance and horizon: being revolted against the rulers but not believing the revolt can succeed (in direct polemic with the Communist Manifesto). In Orwell‘s view there are “three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle and the Low,” but the mindless and passive Low reduce this to the Middle against the High, or intellect and impotence vs. cynical power. No economics entails here no class struggle and a fair amount of misogyny. Orwell‘s textural skill was penetrating, but his thematics very limited. Still, he was one of the first to notice the long-duration slide of politics toward fascism is, even if he drew a wrong consequence from it, as evident in his early conflation of Stalinism and Nazism into the untenable “totalitarianism.” 1984 remains a concerned, appealing, and in some ways useful text that lacks wisdom.Abstract: The essay is divided into 2 parts. Part 1, For a Rectification of “Violence”, discusses within a “political epistemology of inflicted lesion” first the denotation and yardsticks of violence, then systemic or “structural” violence, and finally argues for counter-violence as self-defence when necessary. Part 2, On the “1968 Moment”: Characteristics of Violence, the Defeat, and the Cost, is historical, it deals with the “1968 Moment”: its violence, defeat, and the cost, as exemplified in the long “Sanrizuka struggle” of farmers helped by students against the expropriation for a larger Tokyo airport. It then compares the Japanese characteristics to those of the French May ’68. It concludes that the main historical achievement of the youth movement came about in the USA, where it contributed to ending the US intervention in Vietnam. As concerns all other major collective and radical aims and instances, the movement failed, and the causes are briefly indicated. A long note gives data about civilians killed by State vs. “group” terrorism ca. 1965-2004.First published as „Words and Lesions: Epistemological Reflections on Violence, the 1968 Moment, and Revolution (with Particular Reference To Japan).“ Critical Q 62.1 (2020): 83-122.This interview was originally published in e-flux journal no. 86 (Nov. 2017) and has not been published in hard copy., 2017A wide-ranging discussion between two ex-Yugoslavs, both from Croatia, both students (in different generations) at Zagreb University, and both in de facto exile, about where we are now, and how to understand the situation of “post-communism,” transiting to destruction of people. Much SF is also discussed as an early-warning system. Privacy Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

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