The West’s imagined independence from outside is failing as borders break down
Evidence
The capitalist “West” has only ever been a structural fantasy of independence and separation from what is outside, a fantasy that is failing now that the border policing on which it depends no longer works. The enemy is already inside, while the victims can no longer obligingly remain offscreen, even if they wanted to. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2015
Categorization
- XREF: Recalls earlier confiscations about the border/refugee crisis in this same reading and the ‘enemy within’ logic in 2001. — connects to: The West’s bordered independence fails because its inside now contains the enemy; The West’s apparent unity masks deep internal divisions; The West’s self-conception formed only in relation to the Rest (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- The West’s bordered independence fails because its inside now contains the enemy
#expands(0.86) - The West required the Rest as a conceptual opposite to define itself.
#expands(0.83) - Misreading civilizational borders causes catastrophic errors in global perspective
#expands(0.80) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 102 - Large unassimilated immigrant communities risk dividing Western societies into separate civilizational blocs
#exemplifies(0.79) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 543 - The West’s self-conception formed only in relation to the Rest
#qualifies(0.78) - Europe’s contested borders function to separate it from communist and Islamic alienness
#exemplifies(0.76) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 831 - Western decline stems from the global spread of Western institutions, not their fading
#complicates(0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 128 - A Western society can voluntarily seek to defect from the West.
#exemplifies(0.74) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 411 - The West’s apparent unity masks deep internal divisions
#expands(0.72)