Intro and disclaimer

I read this book with some friends. Someone had recommended it, and we felt that it was an appropriate time to reflect on what antisemitism has meant in the past, to better understand what it means in the present.

At the start I was a bit sceptical about this contemporary relevance: after all, a lot has happened since Sartre wrote this book (written in 1944, published in 1946). For example, to just mention something, the founding of the state Israel (in 1948). But after reading the book, I was surprised how helpful some of the arguments still are (at least to me).

Today I was accused of “tokenization” in sharing this powerful essay by Masha Gessen on Mastodon (see the reactions under this post). Because of the character limit of a Mastodon post (at least on my server), I decided to turn my response into a little blog post.

In short, the principle that I was accused of violating looks like this: as an outsider to a community, I should not share/boost the view of a minority of that community, when that view disqualifies the concerns that are held by the majority of that community.

The current international order is like:

Put your own oxygen mask on first, order a glass of wine, purchase something shiny from the duty free shop, watch your favourite movie, take a little nap, before assisting others.

Mastodon post

In the spring of 2022, more than a hundred lecturers, organized under the banner of Casual UvA, laid down their marking work and joined a strike. Their demands were simple: 1) permanent contracts for structural work, 2) opportunities for professional development and 3) workload transparency.

After several weeks, the University of Amsterdam presented a new teachers policy that was meant to address the core concerns and frustrations of its lecturers. In response, the lecturers agreed to suspend the strike, hoping that the new policy would be as effective and generous as the university’s central management claimed it would be.

We often say “climate change is here. We have no time to lose.” This is very true, in the sense that we have to act now. In the sense that we cannot afford to lose or waste more time. But it is also not true, in the sense that - with climate change - we have so much to lose, including, not in the least, time.

Imagine what we could have done with all the time that we (and future generations) will have to spend on repairing, adjusting, relocating, rebuilding.

One reason why Mastodon, being part of the Fediverse, is great, is that whenever the next big thing pops up (let’s say the Mastodon of The Future), and it stays within the Fediverse, we will all stay connected. No more “starting over” our networks from scratch.

We all have friends and family who are like “so you want me to switch to Mastodon now? Last year it was Signal, and before that Telegram. I can’t be starting over all the time. I’m sticking to Whatsapp and Twitter”. Now they won’t have an excuse anymore. After switching to the Fediverse we never have to start over again.

Originally published 19 Jan 2022.

TLDR: I think the Fediverse - a group of community-owned, open-source, self-hosted, decentralized and interconnected social media platforms - is a cool and promising alternative to the absolute mess that we have let ourselves be trapped in. For more info on the Fediverse, see for instance this.

In short: I don’t like how large corporate social media platforms 1) collect our data, aggregate it and keep it to themselves, 2) use that data to influence us in a way that makes them and others exorbitant amounts of money (and also happens to undermine the foundations of our democracy by drawing people into fascist filter bubbles), and 3) make it artificially hard to leave them.

I often hear people reject arguments in discussions as “whataboutisms”. The idea is that whataboutisms - “ok, you’re angry about thing A, but what about thing B and thing C” - effectively undermine any kind of critique.

I understand this wariness. Especially when it is done on purpose and in bad faith, it is a dangerously easy way to kill any political talk.¹

Still, I wonder why pointing out the ubiquity of injustice should necessarily lead to some kind of cynical fatalism. Why - when the whatboutism is done without too much snobbery or moral high grounds - the response cannot be something like “yes, actually you’re right: thing A sucks, but fuck things B and C as well”.

Some people might say that an idea like degrowth is (in a disqualifying way) “radical”, but it is the current system that is radical. It is undermining the very basis of everyday life. On a global scale. For (at least) centuries to come. No system or group of people has ever been so close to realizing something so utterly insane. If the path you walk leads to large-scale destruction, it’s the “prudent conservatives” who are the irresponsible radical nutcrackers.

Every day a certain amount of work is done. Food is grown. Machines are built and operated. Stuff is transported. If I would add up all the time - the seconds, minutes, hours - that other people work to provide me with the things that I consume, would I arrive at 1 FTE? 2 FTE? 5?¹ In other words: BP may have tricked me into thinking about my carbon footprint cite:kaufman2020, but what is my labour foot print??