Russia’s war in Ukraine has rallied support for the expansion of NATO—even long-time holdouts like Finland are now joining the alliance.The Breach’s full int...
I’m hoping to generate some good discussion with this video so please feel free to comment below
Gabriel Rockhill calls this group of academics the “radical recuperators” whose function in the west is to divert those amenable to arguments for an alternative to capitalism (“the compatible left”) away from voices that validate truly effective methods to counter capital. I’d recommend you check him out.
Isn’t that like, ridiculously teleological? That’s not how he see’s that function and it’s not a function that anyone has given him if he isn’t an op.
I’m not sure I understand the problem, many people in the imperial core fulfil a useful function for power without realizing it, and without specifically being given orders to do so.
I don’t know, function to me implies some sort of purpose assigned by some sort of entity with agency. His effect may be useful for those in power, but he hasn’t been assigned this role by anyone specifically.
He performs the function just by the law of large numbers stating someone, somewhere, is gonna have the views and motivations that are convenient for hegemony. Hegemonic institutions can do their part to get that person a platform larger than the anti-hegemonic position’s, so he performs his function without ever being handled directly (except by ? I think we’ll never really know, but I doubt Epstein was giving him any direct instructions).
Yeah but there’s no ‘hegemon’ as such; this model is all evolutionary and stochastic, where the hegemony is distributed and emergent, so while I think it’s okay of the context of the model to say he has some ‘effect’ that reinforces certain power structures, it’s not correct to say he has that ‘function’.
Sort of like saying the ‘function’ of mushrooms is to decompose organic matter. That’s what they do, but no one put them there to do that.
I really think you’re wrong, it can just mean “role” or “effect”. Like wind’s function in a turbine is to spin the blades, the function of the Bernoulli Principle in stream dynamics is to cause meandering, or the function of a cat’s whisker is to detect objects in the dark.
But the turbine and the stream dynamics model are designed systems, where in the case of capitalist hegemony system is purely emergent. Function absolutely has teleological implications. Here’s an example but the but really I’m not seeing anything to say it’s synonymous with ‘effect’.
It can be synonymous with role, but role also implies purpose.
Isn’t that like, ridiculously teleological? That’s not how he see’s that function and it’s not a function that anyone has given him if he isn’t an op.
I’m not sure I understand the problem, many people in the imperial core fulfil a useful function for power without realizing it, and without specifically being given orders to do so.
I don’t know, function to me implies some sort of purpose assigned by some sort of entity with agency. His effect may be useful for those in power, but he hasn’t been assigned this role by anyone specifically.
He performs the function just by the law of large numbers stating someone, somewhere, is gonna have the views and motivations that are convenient for hegemony. Hegemonic institutions can do their part to get that person a platform larger than the anti-hegemonic position’s, so he performs his function without ever being handled directly (except by
? I think we’ll never really know, but I doubt Epstein was giving him any direct instructions).
Yeah but there’s no ‘hegemon’ as such; this model is all evolutionary and stochastic, where the hegemony is distributed and emergent, so while I think it’s okay of the context of the model to say he has some ‘effect’ that reinforces certain power structures, it’s not correct to say he has that ‘function’.
Sort of like saying the ‘function’ of mushrooms is to decompose organic matter. That’s what they do, but no one put them there to do that.
Huh, well I’ve definitely heard lots of sentences like that, so I guess we’ve just read different texts. Not much reason to argue semantics here.
That’s my explicit point, that’s what I meant when I said he’s not an op.
Right, I might just be quibbling over words but ‘function’ implies purpose and design which are absent in this case.
I really think you’re wrong, it can just mean “role” or “effect”. Like wind’s function in a turbine is to spin the blades, the function of the Bernoulli Principle in stream dynamics is to cause meandering, or the function of a cat’s whisker is to detect objects in the dark.
But the turbine and the stream dynamics model are designed systems, where in the case of capitalist hegemony system is purely emergent. Function absolutely has teleological implications. Here’s an example but the but really I’m not seeing anything to say it’s synonymous with ‘effect’.
It can be synonymous with role, but role also implies purpose.