Have seen several references to “the great replacement” being pre-Camus (attributed to anti-semites), but have not been able to verify this. Are there any verifiable sources for this, or is it hearsay/disinformation?
I haven't read (this) Camus but as you say, the media version of the Great Replacement is one where immigrants (and especially muslims) take over the country. I have always thought that risible when there are less than 4m muslims in the UK and some 85% of the population is white whilst only a small number of them are islamists. Britain does have an issue with militant islam, but then it has an issue with militant white fascists.
That issue has to be distinguished from the quite separate question of replacability or another word, interchangeability. It is often said of jobs, that no-one is irreplaceable. But whilst the people left in a job might struggle with the workload of the departed person for months, precisely because they are not replaced, the person themselves is barely missed even after a couple of weeks.
Replaceability was not originated by woke, it is the consequence of the commodification of human beings as labour. In western societies this process is very advanced and has proceeded at breakneck speed since the 1950's. "What do you do" is the first question we ask and the main way we define both ourselves and others. Perhaps once
upon a time we might have asked,"where are you from." But such a question is no longer permissible because the answer is meant to be self evident - "I am from the here and now." To ask the question is to imply that a person may be from somewhere else and so may be different. Difference is a threat to replaceability - and we call this diversity. Diversity now means that everyone is the same.
Along with work, our social lives have become commodified. To have a social
life is to engage with the entertainment market. "Come round for a cup of tea and a chat?" "Thanks but that sounds dull. I'll meet you at the local coffee shop which has Colombian beans and good wi-fi."
You say that Camus traces replaceability to 60's egalitarianism. But I'd say this just shows how woke egalitariansim has become an instrument of neo-liberalism. Here I agree with you about the American empire. If global capital is to be welcome everywhere, cultural
obstacles to its usual methods and techniques must be obliterated. Diversity in the sphere of capital accumulation means everyone must fit in just as well in Tokyo and Toronto.
Without a job and decent money, we barely exist as a cultural participant. This is not an egalitarian utopia, it is a capitalist one. We are all saleable and only our marketability, the price we can command, distinguishes us.
In the face of this, it is easy to see how those who cannot command very much, feel deeply threatened. Why their relative poverty is also a sense of cultural devaluation, why they cling to totems of cultural belonging, the flag, the team - and the skin colour. Capitalism makes people contigent second order beings. Not only are they infinitely replaceable, but they are at risk of being cast into cultural non-existence.
To the extent that this system fails, it is fertile ground for fascism - yes the Nazi kind of blood and soil nativism which accords value by drawing lines of inclusion and exclusion.
We need to wake up to the reality that capitalism has a grim reductionist logic in which anything that cannot be bought and sold has no value. Compassion, generosity, care, volunteering, amateur production, none have a place in the capitalist world.
And neither does motherhood, or parenting generally. One gets the eerie feeling as a parent of school age children that one's role is that of an agent of the state drilled to produce the productive workforce of the future.
So should we be afraid of migrants? No. People have always migrated. The real problem is that what it is to be human is being so radically diminished, ironically, just as we are ever more convinced that our horizons are so limitless. But these limitless horizons are the capitalist fantasy, since to realise them one would need to be a billionnaire. And so the billionnaire class become our contemporary heros, whilst we, scraping togther £10 for a pint of lager on a Saturday, sit with our mates (if we have any) in the bar on our phones reading about Elon Musk's ambitions to colonise Mars.
It is easier to go all halal at the supermarket than to have two separate streams for groceries. This is why when the incomer population reaches 5%-10% things switch. Bear in mind too that these incomer populations tend to clump together magnifying their effect in urban circumstances. Add in a shouty stabby component and Voila! A pity all the muscular Jews are in Israel.
If someone says, "I think," that person is actually deflecting blame from themselves rather than attracting it. You see, the person who says, "I think," is not saying that what she says is the truth, only what she thinks. Therefore the poster has an open road to retreat at any time. (Or maybe that's just what *I* think 😉)
Have seen several references to “the great replacement” being pre-Camus (attributed to anti-semites), but have not been able to verify this. Are there any verifiable sources for this, or is it hearsay/disinformation?
You would appreciate my podcast on the great replacement:
https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/7KGL4TEmZNb
I haven't read (this) Camus but as you say, the media version of the Great Replacement is one where immigrants (and especially muslims) take over the country. I have always thought that risible when there are less than 4m muslims in the UK and some 85% of the population is white whilst only a small number of them are islamists. Britain does have an issue with militant islam, but then it has an issue with militant white fascists.
That issue has to be distinguished from the quite separate question of replacability or another word, interchangeability. It is often said of jobs, that no-one is irreplaceable. But whilst the people left in a job might struggle with the workload of the departed person for months, precisely because they are not replaced, the person themselves is barely missed even after a couple of weeks.
Replaceability was not originated by woke, it is the consequence of the commodification of human beings as labour. In western societies this process is very advanced and has proceeded at breakneck speed since the 1950's. "What do you do" is the first question we ask and the main way we define both ourselves and others. Perhaps once
upon a time we might have asked,"where are you from." But such a question is no longer permissible because the answer is meant to be self evident - "I am from the here and now." To ask the question is to imply that a person may be from somewhere else and so may be different. Difference is a threat to replaceability - and we call this diversity. Diversity now means that everyone is the same.
Along with work, our social lives have become commodified. To have a social
life is to engage with the entertainment market. "Come round for a cup of tea and a chat?" "Thanks but that sounds dull. I'll meet you at the local coffee shop which has Colombian beans and good wi-fi."
You say that Camus traces replaceability to 60's egalitarianism. But I'd say this just shows how woke egalitariansim has become an instrument of neo-liberalism. Here I agree with you about the American empire. If global capital is to be welcome everywhere, cultural
obstacles to its usual methods and techniques must be obliterated. Diversity in the sphere of capital accumulation means everyone must fit in just as well in Tokyo and Toronto.
Without a job and decent money, we barely exist as a cultural participant. This is not an egalitarian utopia, it is a capitalist one. We are all saleable and only our marketability, the price we can command, distinguishes us.
In the face of this, it is easy to see how those who cannot command very much, feel deeply threatened. Why their relative poverty is also a sense of cultural devaluation, why they cling to totems of cultural belonging, the flag, the team - and the skin colour. Capitalism makes people contigent second order beings. Not only are they infinitely replaceable, but they are at risk of being cast into cultural non-existence.
To the extent that this system fails, it is fertile ground for fascism - yes the Nazi kind of blood and soil nativism which accords value by drawing lines of inclusion and exclusion.
We need to wake up to the reality that capitalism has a grim reductionist logic in which anything that cannot be bought and sold has no value. Compassion, generosity, care, volunteering, amateur production, none have a place in the capitalist world.
And neither does motherhood, or parenting generally. One gets the eerie feeling as a parent of school age children that one's role is that of an agent of the state drilled to produce the productive workforce of the future.
So should we be afraid of migrants? No. People have always migrated. The real problem is that what it is to be human is being so radically diminished, ironically, just as we are ever more convinced that our horizons are so limitless. But these limitless horizons are the capitalist fantasy, since to realise them one would need to be a billionnaire. And so the billionnaire class become our contemporary heros, whilst we, scraping togther £10 for a pint of lager on a Saturday, sit with our mates (if we have any) in the bar on our phones reading about Elon Musk's ambitions to colonise Mars.
It is easier to go all halal at the supermarket than to have two separate streams for groceries. This is why when the incomer population reaches 5%-10% things switch. Bear in mind too that these incomer populations tend to clump together magnifying their effect in urban circumstances. Add in a shouty stabby component and Voila! A pity all the muscular Jews are in Israel.
Indeed they are the subject and not the object of the story. It is the ‘I’ gender generation; no ‘he’ or ‘she’ allowed.
Why do so many sub stackers write in the 1st person
then charge money for their sole thoughts ?
Perhaps they should charge by the number of times
they use the word 'I' .
If someone says, "I think," that person is actually deflecting blame from themselves rather than attracting it. You see, the person who says, "I think," is not saying that what she says is the truth, only what she thinks. Therefore the poster has an open road to retreat at any time. (Or maybe that's just what *I* think 😉)