why is there such a blindspot about Islamic extremism on the left? I feel like I understand a lot of their other blind spots but this one is a mystery to me. Why do they implicitly, often unconsciously, cover for an ideology that ought to be totally anathema to them?
I always thought post-revolution Iran was very "second world". adjacent to soviet periphery, buying weapons from Russia, far more industrialized than the true third world and never colonized (not explicitly anyway).
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In the original conception I think first world was the western sphere, second the Soviets’, and third everyone else. For Foucault I just wanted to draw attention to the way he saw it originally as progressive in an anti-liberal and anti-capitalist way.
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His support suggested a longing for something novel without a great deal of concern for how it could be oppressive. The third worldism is a different tendency, but something that shares similarities to this view in its desire for the Other.
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fetishization is the right word. maybe should use a stronger term: xenophilia
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what does the left currently make of Iran though? there are actual secularists and liberals protesting their as we speak. haven't seen all that much support for them on the left, but I haven't been looking really.
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Here I’ll be explicit that the left is not as unified as my statements might imply. I would be more nuanced if not for Twitter. I’ve even been flippant about conflating liberals and leftists. But I think there was some deep division from liberal to left on this.
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I sense some American liberals were ambivalent because of the fact that “down with the Ayatollah” doesn’t support continuing Obama’s detente with Iran and aligns them with Trump. On the farther left I saw some support for workers’ action against Iran.
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Having said that, the far left also has a lot of cranks that probably thought it was an operation to reestablish American hegemony in the region.
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