Never Mind the Broligarchy, What About the He-gemony?
Debate with a Common Or Garden Conspiracist
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Never Mind the Broligarchy, What About the He-gemony? Or: How Not to Debate with a Common Or Garden Conspiracist
Paul Bowman 1. When Someone is Wrong on the Internet I just need to get something off my chest. And I need the right medium. And to me, the shortish (at least, not to sadistic in length) blog style essay is a good option. What follows is such a thing. A quick morning catharsis. A way to escape from a social media black hole. Maybe even a way to preserve what remains of a friendship. Anyway. As a preface, let me say clearly: I don't often get pulled into online arguments. I don't like the genre. So I studiously avoid getting pulled into (and becoming and instance of) the 'but someone is wrong on the internet' joke. As Gilles Deleuze once said somewhere, if someone were to suggest having a 'debate', a true philosopher would run a mile. But when I saw Elon Musk doing not one but two nazi salutes at the inauguration of Trump, I couldn't help myself commenting. Initially I posted horrified statements of the order 'I cannot believe what I have just seen'. The next day I wrote, on Facebook:
To be clear, on Facebook I am just me. Not me at work, not me looking for a promotion, not me in public. Not professional me. Just me. On Facebook I am friends with people I know – mostly 'actual friends', or at least people I have met. So I joke, I swear, I am frivolous. It's me 'off duty'. So I am mainly ironic and almost always write informally. The post got a few likes and a few laughing emojis along with some agreements and other observations. But then it arrived: my conspiracy theory friend arrived and chimed in: '"My heart goes out to you all"...... Stop reaching'. This comment was accompanied by a meme of other American politicians raising their right hands. 2. When you're wrong. No, you're wrong I took the bait, thinking this would be quick and clean and easy. I say: 'as well as text there's also context. There are a range of differences. Also the fact that Musk is a fascist, that also makes a difference too'. With a mischievous sparkle in his eye (I imagine), he says, faux-innocently (I can almost feel his glee): 'How is Musk a fascist?' I understand this move: place burden of proof onto me so that he can play innocent/merely forensic Socrates. I think 'oh fuck – I can't be bothered with this'. So I decide to attempt to de-escalate; make a conciliatory, jokey, friendly remark. So I write: '[rummages through back list of things he's read arguing that Musk is a fascist, already anticipating likely counter-rummaging, heart sinking]'. I thought this would signal my reluctance to be pulled into a tit-for-tat conflict involving throwing links and articles and clips and factoids at each other from two ever-deeper trenches. To follow up on the de-escalating gesture, and also because I remember that, hang on, I do not actually think there are any 'good guys' in American politics, I belatedly follow up with: 'I'm actually quite comfortable with the idea that all of those people in that rather compelling collage are essentially fascist'. I believe he clicked 'like' or 'laughing emoji' on this comment. In what I thought felt like a change of tone (I thought, 'yay me and my clever de-escalation'), I started reading his next comment:
Politely ignoring the conspiracy theory jargon and the Hollywood Thriller Epistemology it implies (pace Žižek), I latch onto the possible opportunity for (as they say) 'allyship' [puke emoji at this neologism here]. So I keep on the de-escalation tip. (This man is an actual friend of mine, after all). So I choose to say:
This gets a few likes, including from him. Yet then he posts this:
3. Bait and Click If you don't want to click on the link (I didn't), it is a short film of some American on a podium patting his heart and waving to the audience, absolutely dissimilar in every single way to Elon Musk's deliberate and obvious two Nazi salutes at Trump's 2025 inauguration. So I say (sarcastically): 'Erm… Yes. *Exactly* the same'. Then I say (God, I'm starting to sound desperate, even to myself), 'You're a funny man!' (Why am I so weak? Because I've always been a mediator… but that's another story.) Anyway, inevitably, he says: 'How is different? Elons was more expressive? More Nazi? At least Elon precursed his with my heart goes out to you all. Walz didn't, he just saluted'. I think to myself something along the lines of 'head in hands emoji here'. Funny how our technology influences the way we think. I give up. I simply say: 'He's a crackin' bloke!' Sensing my fatigue, he seizes the advantage and charges on: 'X is the only uncensored free speech platform so I guess we can thank him for that... I hear he's a pretty big deal in electric cars, space travel and affordable Internet'. I'm not sure if I can detect a hint of de-escalation in there, but for whatever reason I want to maintain good relations, so I say: 'I don't like twitter. Never have. Bluesky seems to be an improvement, but I still don't enjoy the format. Despite everything, I still prefer Facebook. Which is annoying'. I thought that was quite a safe kind of thing to say. But no. He says:
So I think (belatedly? This whole exercise is raising a lot of questions for me about the way I interact…) 'ah, what the hell – why don't I just throw some grenades?' So I wrote 'Interesting', and pasted this link:
4. Reinforcements Very few other people were commenting on the conversation now. However, evidently at least one person was still reading. He chimed in with:
To which I reply: 'She was probably an agent of THE DEEP STATE, speaking in code and trying to avoid THE GREAT REPLACEMENT. Or something. People like that don't DESERVE free speech'. Maybe I shouldn't have done this. But we all enjoy 'allyship' and a good feeding frenzy, and it certainly felt nice to have reinforcements. At around the same time, I saw the story of Elon Musk appearing on a screen at – and in support of a far-right (nazi?) rally in Germany. I realised that this would fairly concisely answer the earlier question 'How is Musk a fascist?' So I post: In response to this, he soon says: 'I wonder how many people in the UK are starting to doubt the gift of multiculturalism......' Then, as he reads further into the articles, he quickly follows up with: '"Personal attacks against Kier Starmer".... Oh you mean exposing Starmers part in the cover up of the rape of 200,000 girls over two decades....' 5. Enervation I walk away from Facebook. As I say, I don't normally get involved in stuff like this. For good reason. Yet, I still feel the push and pull forces acting on me. I want to spend thirty seconds Googling (or rather Ecosia-ing) to find another grenade to throw, but I also want to quit Facebook, quit Meta, quit all online life. I delete Facebook and Instagram from my phone. Several days later, after I have deleted from my phone the once-friendly Facebook and the Total Consciousness Capture Trap that is Instagram, I sit at my computer and feel the urge to say 'just one more thing'. I start to type it knowing that this could be the genuine end of our real life friendship. Before I share that comment here, I also want to point out that when I went back to copy and paste these exchanges, Facebook seemed hell-bent on hiding this particular comment from me. I knew that it existed because I knew that I'd typed it, but Facebook would not show this comment to me, until I went back into my own activity history and found it. Make of that what you will. But here it is:
I tell my wife that I think I've just dropped a bomb on one of my real life friendships. 6. Legitimation Crisis Then he writes:
To which I reply (am I still trying to de-escalate, save a friendship, or am I literally just being a drip now?): 'Aye. Joe Rogan and Alex Jones are the only reliable sources, right?' (I like to think I am not actually being a drip, because I am still making my points, albeit ironically, right? Anybody?... Anyway.) Then he replies: 'Okay mate, I prefer independent journalism to legacy media which have a bad track record'. Evidently not satisfied that this covers quite everything he wants to say, he then adds: 'Your responses seem to switch between ad hominem attacks and virtue signalling. Seems like woke left wing ideology doesn't do well outside of an echo chamber'. This hurts. These last two comments are what I woke up to this morning. I immediately try to read back through the entire exchange to look for anything I might have said that was an 'ad hominem attack' or 'virtue signalling'. 7. Ad Hominem OK, maybe the ad hominem bit can stand. Taking the piss is certainly one of my preferred starting positions, at least when I am not at work. However, the 'woke left wing ideology' bit got under my skin. Having researched all of these matters – or all of the themes that tend to be condensed into such terms – I find anyone challenging me via these terms to be quite, shall we say, 'triggering'. Not triggering in the correct sense of course. Rather, triggering in the sense of enraging. For – I confess – if someone who does not have a PhD in cultural theory or ideology critique starts using terms like 'woke' or 'left wing' or 'ideology', well, I reach for my many decades of work and library of knowledge. But we'll get to that. Finally, I say – still trying to be conciliatory? Definitely still trying to resist the polemicizing logic of social media and its tendency to inflame passions:
8. Everyday He-gemony I know that it was because of his final ad hominem attack on me that I went back through the entire exchange and ultimately ended up writing this. And I know this is in many respects unremarkable. It's just everyday he-gemony. (People talk about the broligarchy. Well, if there's a broligarchy, then there must be a he-gemony of followers, right?) But I wanted to capture it, and also comment on it, and get it off my chest. Once I have posted this piece on Substack, I will go back and delete the entire exchange. I will probably still share this piece on Facebook, meaning that my friend (still?) will probably see it, and probably comment. And we'll see where that goes. Why did I write this? Not merely because one of the two most powerful institutions in the world has been infested by fascism, stupidity, nastiness, and idiocy. But also because I wanted to weigh in slightly on the fact that the broligarchy is underpinned by a he-gemony, and what this looks like, from where I'm standing – from where I assiduously try to avoid it, most of the time. I always wanted to try to imagine that most of contemporary global cultural and political stupidity was 'over there'. I wanted very much to 'Other' it, and console myself with the idea that it is the American media environment that caused all of this. I still do (try to) think that. But I despair when I realise just how far the grip of the broligarchy or the he-gemony truly goes. I guess it's hardly surprising. If, like me, you sometimes move in martial arts and weight lifting circles, you are going to encounter some 'bros'. And guess what? Yes. They listen to Joe Rogan, and laugh along and nod along a 'gee' and 'wow' and 'gasp' and 'I'm outraged', and all of that. (After reading something on Substack last week, I now almost entirely think of the Joe Rogan Experience as a place where bros can go and lie for three hours unchallenged for an audience of bros.) Ultimately, this is about rubbing an injury. What hurts me the most, really, is the pain of trying to have a measured and reasonable discussion on platforms designed to polemicize. I used to think it was mainly just Twitter. Twitter definitely seems the worst. But the epistemological violence that social media causes to information, to evidence, to thinking, reasoning, outlook and argument can be staggering. I often recall one of Rancière's critiques of Althusser, when the ostensibly or erstwhile radical professor refused to support the students on the barricades in 1968. According to Rancière, Althusser refused to join in for two basic reasons: first, his theory couldn't allow him to accept that the revolution would be started by students; second, he couldn't regard the speech and protests of the students as entirely mature, precisely because they hadn't finished their studies, so they could not be accorded full intellectual and political status. They were not equals. In other words, Rancière argued, Althusser's was an eminently conservative position. For if you have to pass through the university and come out at the top of it before you can be taken seriously, then you are arguing for the conservation of social institutions and hierarchies. Put differently, the problematic becomes (remains) one of voice, authority, hierarchy, information, interpretation and legitimacy or legitimation. Lyotard called this the problem of the differend and the legitimation crisis in knowledge. To me, a disagreement on social, cultural or political matters is best handled by logging into a library catalogue, spending some considerable time seeing what has been written on the matter by as many independent and peer reviewed researchers as possible, reading that work, and then – and only then – deciding whether to carry out any further research of any kind, or whether instead to simply base my opinions on the literature review. This, at least, is the ideal. I'm not entirely sure that this is the research methodology of many in or around the broligarchy or their followers in the he-gemony. But anyway, jeez, is that the time? This is NOT what I was meant to be doing this morning. I've got to get back to the real world of a university library.
© 2025 Paul Bowman |
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