Querdenker - we need to unite [not only] “across the spectrum”, but also “beyond” it - ‘Querdenker’ und ‘Querdenken’!

(A reply to and continuation of post here)

I understand and agree with the essential SMPBI message here. Although it needs saying that the call for a ‘broad-spectrum’ approach does not sit easily with the limited spectrum suggested by the continued iconographic array of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Enver Hoxha on the SMPBI homepage. What about Rene Guenon, Julius Evola, Ernst Niekisch, Otto Strasser, Oswald Mosley, Ernst Junger, Martin Heidegger and Alexandr Dugin - to name but a few others?

However, I also see an even greater danger. This is the danger that the very language of the SMPBI message falling victim in part to precisely what it seeks to break free of - the language game of using stereotypical terms and labels such as ‘right’ and ‘left’.

One principal, if not fundamental way in which capitalism maintains itself is through an ever-deepening corruption and hollowing out of language - one which strips all historical context from words and uses them instead as empty slogans or catch phrases or verbal ‘memes’. Thus the word ‘regime’ is now deliberately used to mean any government standing in the way of imperialism. But this does not mean that terms such as ‘left’ and ‘right’, for example, were created as part of some sinister agenda “designed by our enemies”. They have specific historical roots - in this case the French Revolution. The same applies to the terms ‘sovereignty’ and ‘globalisation’.

If we are speaking of national sovereignty then this is simply impossible without monetary sovereignty - so why not speak specifically of national and monetary sovereignty - rather than some totally generalised, abstract and totally unhistorical notion of ‘Sovereignty’ with a capitalised ‘S’? Let us not forget also that, historically, those who left Europe to settle in America did so precisely to free themselves from the self-assumed ‘sovereignty’ of tyrannical monarchs and reclaim it for the people - understood as consisting of sovereign individuals, families and their communities and regulated only by simple ‘common law’ - not by legal statute. The entire history of the U.S.A. is the history of attack by banking and corporate interests on the very notion of a sovereign individual - an individual not in any way subject to the legal statutes of any national monarch or parliament with the power to impose them.

To capitalise words and speak, for example, of “the sanctity of Sovereignty” (with a big ‘S’) is to completely lose sight of the long historical background and evolution the the words ‘sovereign’ and ‘sovereignty’ - and in this way to also hollow them out of all concrete historical meaning - in only by ‘sanctifying’ the word with a capital letter. The result is a type of religious rhetoric of Good versus Evil, God versus the Devil - one that rests on demonising an “enemy” rather than on an understanding of history, and that sanctifies specific words whilst at the same time emptying them of concrete meaning.

The same applies to the capitalised word ‘Globalisation’ - with its big G. Global trade and cultural exchange go back hundreds, indeed thousands of years. So what exactly is specific in the use of the word ‘globalisation’ today - aside from it being (a) a reality and (b) an inevitable result of the evolution of capitalism - not some sort of ‘cunning plan’. To be sure, there are those who benefit from and also actively promote the global power of transnational corporations and finance capital. But their actions are but localised conduits of a specific trend or course of historical development - and not the cause of this course of development.

Language is also constantly corrupted through a quasi-religious simplification of political issues and messages with Orwellian overtones.

Example: ‘Britain good. EU bad’ - or vice versa. Or: ‘The West good. Russia bad’ etc. The UKIP referendum slogan of “taking back control” was a prime example of emotionally powerful but essentially empty rhetoric. Take back control of what exactly? The emotional appeal of the slogan was that everyone would like more control over their lives. But in the UKIP slogan of ‘taking back control’ not even borders were mentioned - let alone banks - as objects of this ‘control’.

Designing and delivering the most simplistic but emotionally appealing stories and messages is a central part of the ‘Strategic Communications Policy’ (StratCom) of both NATO and the U.S. military - and something to which they attach the highest importance. The aim is to dumb-down the population through the endless media repetition of simplified good guy/bad guy stories or ‘narratives’ - for example about Assad and Putin, Russia or Iran.

Should our response to this be equally simplified and simplistic name-calling, stories or narratives? Or is it not our responsibility to shed that fear and insecurity which so many people feel in the face of the world’s complexity - for this is the fear and insecurity on which the power of simplistic story-stelling and scapegoating relies. To shed this fear and insecurity requires real courage and maturity. In contrast, constant talk of simply ‘SMASHING’ this or that (capitalism, globalism, Trotskyism or whatever) is an expression of infantile rage and impotence - combined with no less infantile fantasies of omnipotence. Surely a more adult approach would be to talk of analysing, discussing, challenging and finding new ways to challenge and undermine something - rather than to ‘smash’ it in the manner of a single iconic hammer blow of a poster-caricatured worker.

The SMPBI message states:

“The whole political spectrum is designed by our enemies; they control every aspect. By playing their game we are perpetuating it.”

What I am suggesting is that the “game” correctly referred to here is essentially a language game - and that to not fall into the trap of “perpetuating” this game means more than just shedding a couple of stereotypical labels such as ‘left’ or ‘right’.

It also means stripping our own political language of its own stereotypical and name-calling labels - and of its own simplistic rhetoric and narratives of all sorts.

Only in this way can we raise our ‘language game’ or ‘discourse’ - which means also our thinking as such - to a level that does true justice to our ideals - and does not sink to the level of parliamentary farce and rhetoric.

The alternative is that:

“We no longer have debate. We have conflicting narratives … [along with] a decrease in the general level of discourse.” John Lancaster

This means also that thinking itself becomes dumbed-down “across the spectrum” - to a point where Heidegger suggested it might even cease to exist. This danger lurks as long as no new questions are ever raised - whether about the nature of the world we live in, or about particular ideological platforms and worldviews. Above all too few questions are raised about the entire spectrum of stereotypical terms and languages in which these worldviews or platforms are couched. Many of my own questions have to do with this. That is why, instead of ‘Querfront’ I would speak instead of a ‘linguistic front’ - and of a broad spectrum of political languages.

After all, in its root Greek sense, the word ‘ideo-logy’ refers to a way of speaking about and communicating ideas - a language.

Some further questions:

Are we all now following Trump in Capitalising First Letters - or have we switched our language to Germish?!

Finally, how did the the word ‘Querfront’ come to be used here? It does not mean ‘broad spectrum’. Indeed, no dictionary I know of even lists the word ‘Querfront’ at all.The German word ‘Quer’ means ‘crosswise, and not ‘broad’ or ‘across’. But a Querdenker refers, in German, to a type of ‘lateral’ thinker - one whose thinking runs contrary to the whole spectrum of conventional thought, however broad. And that is exactly what we need to unite [not only] “across the spectrum”, but also “beyond” it - ‘Querdenker’ und ‘Querdenken’!

(Complete response here)