There exists a certain tendency on the left, of people who think that all determinations, distinctions, borders just need to be abolished. They then, apparently unconsciously, spend their lives sifting through artworks, pop-songs, films, and cultural critique, accumulating two great piles: on this side those artworks, objects, essays that agree with them; on the other side those of enemies whose views don’t accord with their vulgar nihilism. Having firmly erected a border between those things, people, and ideas they agree with and those they don’t, they are ready to annihilate all those that lie outside. Sadly this border not only excludes the enemy with ever increasing intensity, but also hems in an ever duller stupidity and insensitivity. If only this devastating irony entered into these people’s consciousnesses, they might find themselves implicated in the movement of negativity. Instead they bow in positive belief to the God of absolute negation, which, as belief, turns out only to be an unreflecting subject; unreflecting on its exclusionary violence. To some it’s not a surprise that these politics find expression in some narcissistic hymn: the CV, the catalogue essay, or the confessional. They knew this all along, as a healthy young bourgeoisie in ascendancy.
theartofmadeline
