Paranoia and Delusion: Liberalism's Descent Into Cold War Fantasies

Jutel, Olivier (2017) Paranoia and Delusion: Liberalism's Descent Into Cold War Fantasies. Overland, 228 . pp. 3-9. ISSN 0030-7416

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Abstract

The sense that one’s time is inferior to what has preceded it is a lament that propels his- tory and allows one to vicariously experience past glories. As Marx wrote in his essay ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’, we ‘anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and bor- rowed language.’
In this centenary of the October Rev- olution, gesturing towards the ideal of com- munism runs the gamut from dank memes and internecine online struggles to the odd meeting (or, futilely, writing and reading Lacanian Marxist tracts about the necessity of a Leninist party). In these e orts, it’s hard not to feel hapless conspirators in the stupid- ity of a post-ideological age, one in equal parts risible and perilous. And yet, in 2017, ‘Russia’ – as a metonym for both communism and a range of contradictory evils – is once more at the centre of American liberal consciousness as an existential threat to all that is holy.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	E History America > E151 United States (General) H Social Sciences > HX Socialism. Communism. Anarchism J Political Science > JC Political theory
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts, Law and Education (FALE) > School of Language, Arts and Media
Depositing User:	Olivier Jutel
Date Deposited:	10 Oct 2017 23:26
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2017 23:26
URI:	https://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/10240

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