Left Identitarianism in Naomi Klein's Doppelganger ft. Ben Burgis
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- Read Ben's piece in Damage Magazine here: damagemag.com/...
We discuss with Ben his book review for Damage Magazine of Naomi Klein's "Doppelganger". We'll discuss what she gets right, and what Ben thinks she misses the mark on.
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I think Mahmood Mamdani (a descendant of East African Indians who was expelled from Uganda under Idi Amin because he was classified as non-indigenous) makes a compelling argument about this in his book Neither Settler Nor Native:
"Immigrants are unarmed; settlers come armed with both weapons and a nationalist agenda. Immigrants come in search of a homeland, not a state; for settlers, there can be no homeland without a state. For the immigrant, the homeland can be shared; for the settler, the state must be a nation-state, a preserve of the nation in which all others are at most tolerated guests."
By this standard, we can identify significant numbers of people who either directly took land from indigenous North Americans by force, or took land that the state had taken from them by force well into the 20th century. It may not be justifiable to call the descendants of those people settlers, but it is understandable that many indigenous people view them that way. You don't need to subscribe to blood and soil nationalism to believe that, precisely because the genocide and land grab by settlers was not just "early" but also quite recent, indigenous peoples have legitimate legal claims to unceded lands taken in violation of their treaty rights.
I agree that Klein could have been clearer about her definition of "settler" in the book. And it is worth discussing at which point the word "settlers" is no longer reasonably applicable to descendants of settlers. But I also had some real problems with Ben's Damage Mag piece. He writes: "The premise that the dispossession of the natives by early European settlers was a terrible thing-a grave violation of rights all humans should have-is certainly correct. It’s similarly true that various forms of discrimination continued long after the initial settlement, and that any such history tends to drag a trail of continuing material disparities in its wake." But it is absurd to claim that "dispossession" was limited to "early" settlers, or to describe what happened after the "initial settlement" as "various forms of discrimination." Even if we adopt a minimal definition of "settler" as "someone moving onto lands that indigenous people were driven from by force" (like Israeli settlers in the West Bank moving into bulldozed Palestinian villages), in mainland North America that applies to the whole period from the first Anglo-Powhatan War (1609-1614) to the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. During that 289-year period, there was an unbroken series of genocidal massacres, and then nearly 1,000 Native children died as a result of being placed in boarding schools after that. Also, the land grabs were continuous. Native Americans lost HALF their (already much-reduced) lands as a result of the Dawes Act of 1887, and those lands were still being auctioned off in the early 20th century. Then there was a further wave of land-grabbing with the "termination" policy from the 1940s through the 1960s. How are the non-indigenous people who moved onto those lands acquired unjustly by force not "settlers"? We can say the same thing about Hawaii in 1779-1959. Taking all of this together, it is indefensible to claim that the dispossession only happened "early" or that what happened after "initial settlement" was merely discrimination. I hope that Ben corrects these egregious errors in his piece.
"Initial" is being made to bear a LOT of weight in this reading.
I don't disagree that some non-native Americans could reasonably be described as "settlers" in the later stages of the multi-century process you describe, even if of course the vast majority couldn't. Nothing I say so much as hints at disagreement with that point, and it has no possible shadow ofr relevance to any argument I make in the article.
@BenBurgisGTAA Actually, it's incredibly important, because whether we describe the dispossession as limited to the first wave, or as something unfolding over centuries actually matters. One is false, and the other is true. Also, it is extremely euphemistic to describe what happened after the "initial settlement" as "various forms of discrimination." A very long process of genocidal violence and land grabbing happened AFTER initial settlement, and it is bullshit to deny that fact.
@@beyondaboundary6034 I don't say dispossession was "limited to a first wave" or anything that anyone who can read thinks is equivalent to that, actually. You just made that up.
There’s simply nothing in the sentence you’re worked up about that could sanely be taken to imply anything one way or the other about how many waves there were or how long they took. In best tradition of internet bullshit, you’re making up a position to get mad at.
@BenBurgisGTAA Now you're trying to redefine "early' and "initial settlement" to encompass a centuries-long process, when that's clearly not what you wrote in your essay. It makes no sense to describe what happened after an "early" period of "initial settlement" as "various forms of discrimination" unless you stretch the English language beyond the breaking point.
This mirror world thing sounds like something Hans George Moeller has been talking about for a while. He uses the term "wokeism" (which i know is loaded af nowadays) to basically describe this left identitarianism and refers to it as a civil religion. He also calls "anti woke" people like Jordan Peterson etc as being a mirror to wokeism. It kinda sounds like the same idea to me, so it's being noted by alotta people which i think is good. We gotta understand these are all distractions from class analysis
"Horse shoe theory unless it's Marxism then it's right"
@charleswofford6296 It's not horseshoe theory so much as its different flavors of liberalism.
"He uses the term "wokeism" (which i know is loaded af nowadays) to basically describe this left identitarianism and refers to it as a civil religion. He also calls "anti woke" people like Jordan Peterson etc as being a mirror to wokeism."
On this note, I would highly recommend Freddie deBoer's article _Of Course You Know What 'Woke' Means_ .
@synchronium24 Checked out that article. And yes I agree with it 💯. It feels like the kinda stuff that happens when " the left" is powerless. We can't find a way to eat the rich so to speak, so we see which among us might be able to spare some limbs and eat each other instead.
I don’t think Klein just suggesting as a euro Canadian to be mindful of the land as opposed to how euro Canadians have already acted for generations, which is to act with impunity, isn’t that much of an issue? I agree we don’t want to constantly harp on people being settlers and nothing more but it seems like all she’s suggesting is being more mindful which seems appealing actually to indigenous people of Canada and North America generally.
1992 Dirty by Sonic Youth
As a white person like Benny I apologize for any cringe he is talking
Klein has stated in interviews that this book’s style was a departure from her usual books. It is a more personal book. She knew she was taking a chance writing a book of this nature.
I liked the personal parts of the book! If Klein wrote a straight memoir I would absolutely read it.
I'm riding with 94 if we talking a year in music in 90's
Good choice 💯
I think in full disclosure- ppl need to start saying whether they took the shot & how many boosters. But MOSTLY. If you didn’t and aren’t taking the booster, please explain why.
Because this is an admission of sort - the closest thing to a mia culpa from chicken littles who in a
any other case prefers to move on and not revisit how afraid and/or smugly wrong they were.
If not you look/sound silly flippantly engaging in sloganeering like “anti-vax”.
Use Your Illusions '91
Hilarious
In fact, you annoy me the most Burgess.
This PMC talk show sucks.
Ben, you losing weight brohim? Lookin good dude!
Your left vs right idiot framing makes you dull in my opinion.
You're full, those are valid words.
Who cares what settlers think about settler, talk to indigenous comrades for fucks sake