I’m hoping to generate some good discussion with this video so please feel free to comment below maduro-coffee

  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      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 epstein? I think we’ll never really know, but I doubt Epstein was giving him any direct instructions).

      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          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.

    • MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      His effect may be useful for those in power, but he hasn’t been assigned this role by anyone specifically

      That’s my explicit point, that’s what I meant when I said he’s not an op.

        • MF_COOM [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            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.