Risk and Extortion XXXIX: Fascism Has Never Left: Immune Sense

Every Day is Kristallnacht …..

I do not apologize for the short interruption in Chapter XXXVIIII. The consequences of kakistocratic practices must be addressed immediately. The continuation of the Critique of Cultural Marxism must wait. First, the genocide in Gaza is an immediate, horrific crime of planetary proportions. It must never be ignored. Second, the vile reality of filthy, disgusting old men – Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and so on – destroying the world needs to be treated as the norm, not as anomaly.  They are fascists.

In the 1980s, the kind of music I was listening to was full of warnings of the re-emergence of fascist mind sets. In the Netherlands, a small punkish band called ‘t Klein Orkest had a song called De Laarzen (the boots). The chorus is the following:

De burgers van ‘t gezond verstand. De laatste hoop voor Nederland. Geef hen de macht, marcheer maar, de laarzen staan al klaar

Translation:

The citizens of common sense. The last hope for Netherlands. Hand them the power, march on, the boots are ready

Common sense in Dutch is gezond verstand literally meaning healthy sense. Health relates to immunity. A healthy sense that is immune cannot be affected. This is the core of this specific notion of common sense: its commonality is restricted to what it already is. It cannot be affected because it is forged in the fear of being infected. This fear is the fear that fascism feeds on. Fascism is the political culture of anxiety, neurosis, narcissism and cowardice. People who are drawn to fascism are indeed objectively speaking cowards and afflicted by a sense of anxiety.

This applies extremely well to the hegemonic political culture of the state of Israel. The hatred for what Israelis commonly refer to as “Arabs” is deeply rooted in a desperate anxiety that is filled to the brim with cowardice. It is from this cowardice that the barbaric, sadistic desire of filth like Smotric, Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu stems. It is also the cowardice of leaders of so called “Arab states” that keeps them quiet.

We are this in the situation that the vast majority of leading politicians are weaklings, cowards and neurotic narcissists. No wonder that the planet it in such dire straits. What in the 1980s still looked like a minority public opinion has now become the hegemonic political culture. The filth that is now in power world-wide, was cultivated decades ago. The apocalypse is now – it is not restricted to Gaza – it is the brain rot of the political. If this is not proof of the negative dialectic of the Enlightenment, I do not know how it should be interpreted instead.

The hegemonic political culture of fascist anxiety and cowardice attaches itself to this strange notion of the immunization of common sense as “healthy sense”; perhaps it should be called immune sense – which would be the exact opposite of common sense. Immune sense is what most press secretaries, politicians and mainstream media journalists deploy when asking to give an account of reality. PR-speech is rarely deeply affected by reality; its focus is on political interests, which in the age of kleptocracy and kakistocracy are also personal interests. Immune sense informs a practice that now commonly goes by the name of gaslighting: a mode of inculpation that reverses not only perceptions of what is real and what is not, but also inverses the roles of perpetrator and victim.

Because of his mind-boggling infantile stupidity, Donald Trump of course perfectly fits the bill. Not only does he never speak without a forked tongue, he also loves to portray himself as an outsider and a victim, whilst raking in millions through fraud (for which he has been convicted in a court of law) and extortion. Many others also fit the bill however. Each and every person responding to the genocide in Gaza with “.. but Hamas.. ” and/or “Israel has a right to defend itself” engages in the immune sense of gaslighting.  

It is at moments like this, that my rage prevents me from writing succinctly. Therefore I now turn to another song from the 1980s: Kristallnacht by the German band from Cologne “BAP”.  The final verse says it all:

Wo man Hymnen auf dem Kamm sogar bläst
In barbarischer Gier nach Profit
“Hosianna” und “Kreuzigt ihn!” ruft
Wenn man irgendeinen Vorteil darin sieht
Ist täglich Kristallnacht

What makes this song so good is that it never suggested that antisemitism is some kind of special, isolated phenomenon; instead it argues the opposite: “when hymns are ‘blown on the comb’ (like a kazoo, indicating the cheapness of immune sense), in barbaric greed for profit. Where “Hosanna” and “Crucify him!” are shouted, whenever some advantage is seen in it, it is Kristallnacht every day”. Antisemitism is the archetypical expression of immune sense that applies to all forms of hatred connected to anxiety and cowardice by those who are afraid of having to lose their privileges. What is central is immune sense, and this enables the daily repetition of Kristallnacht.  The fact that the song actually invokes the cheering masses, calling for the crucifixion of Jesus after priasing him first, supports exactly this interpretation. The link to greed and opportunism as motivating support for barbaric acts in the name of superficial, sanctimonious morality (“Israel has the right to defend itself”) highlights exactly why for most of us, it should be obvious that fascistic cowardice is cultivated by capitalist neurosis.