26/02/2026

Notes: Three co-workers from my apprenticeship school I met yesterday, they were all three watching Instagram Reels together. They had a good time, focus was on Reels with figures such as Charlie Kirk, George Floyd, Hitler and themes of nazism, racism, extremism and antisemitism. I was invited to drink with one of them beforehand, but I was too tired and he called fairly late. At school today, one also saw them all three playing reels loud in class alongside playing music that sounded Jew in class at times. Only thing notable in class was with one teacher (Vi.). Two groups were presenting, one was uneventful. The other group also did presentation, latter group only had a presentation that lasted 5 minutes compared to allotted time of 25-30 minutes. Because they initially were intended to be given a good grade, the other group protested escalating into a general discussion dominating class and no further additions being made. One of the persons in the group (L.), was resentful and repeatedly tried to insist on ceasing the discussion; the other group meanwhile admonished them indirectly for not doing a good presentation and hinted how they could worsen their grade if they vocalised how bad their presentation was, as the teacher was grading them exceptionally well out of niceness.

Thoughts: I've met multiple people in my apprenticeship now, who consume Instagram Reels and have an enjoyment out of the bigoted content they see in it, alongside also increasingly vocalising exclusive rhetoric and language (e.g. L. calls people he dislikes a Jew now if he dislikes them). Now, the easy truth is that it's incredibly low-iq and undignified of ourselves, and an example of outsourcing our personalities to algorithms. The explanation, however, is more interesitng. The the enjoyment is I think due to the double position of this ironic bigotry: one enjoys both the denigration, while also always touching but trying to never violate the taboo itself openly. "Vice signalling" fits this well. This has been a dominating theme in itself, Christian moralists have since the birth of Christianity periodically debated if one can joke without it being at the expense of other people (or through lying/stating an untruth), and thus if Jesus ever joked. While some held one cannot joke without incurring a sin, others stated that joking is acceptable if it is neither denigrating and everyone knows the untruth in the joke to be an untruth intuitively.

Yet it also rooted in something else: the daily practice of exclusion. Some of the pupils themselves are often in conflict with authorities or peers; with authorities it is not seeking to subordinate themselves to their moral norms and demands, while with peers it is often a stance of non-cooperation or conflict (except with one person). But also, fundamentally, every group is premised on some exclusion. To coalsce as group, one has to come to distinguish oneself, and found something in common. And that common has to be articulated in opposition to people -- be it that one dislikes simply another group of people and wants to be with their own friends more closely, or something more negative.

The American Pragmatists (but also Althusser in his Philosophy for Non-Philosophers) wrote that our concepts and thoughts emerge from our practices and actions we seek to make sense of the world and position ourself better in it. When we encounter things such as racism, or other forms of exclusive thoughts and rhetoric, they themselves often are based on our daily practice of exclusion - both in its basic form, but also in the ways distinct exclusion is already practiced: when the topic of euthanasia ("assisted suicide") came up, multiple classmates said they supported it for people like disabled people who are a drain on society. Yet this view is itself a product of how society and state entrenches an exclusion of disabled people from life, and so we already engage in a daily practice of exclusion through non-contact. Even if meant in a positive sense, these views are often divorced from the reality of being someone disabled and their needs themselves.

Our practices of exclusion however breed a resentment that can easily be transferred or chanelled into other targets. When people who vote for the Alternative for Germany I discuss with them, a opposition they hold to "refugees" siphoning state income on them through welfare fraud, their resentment is not grounded in refugees existing, but the fact in their employment and its everyday reality they feel mistreated: they are not holding the position they believe is appropiate for them, or they have co-workers or superiors who do not treat them justly, or they feel their contribution is not being appropiately honoured alongside ways that work does not occur appropiately and affects them, and thus makes them have to contribute more than they should.

The historian Alf Lüdtke coined the word "Eigensinn." I shall quote his own glossary of an attempt to convey the meaning to an English audience: "Eigen-Sinn: denoting willfulness, spontaneous self-will, a kind of self-affirmation, an act of (re)appropriating alienated social relations on and off the shop floor by self-assertive prankishness, demarcating a space of one's own. There is a disjunction between formalized politics and the prankish, stylized, misanthropic distancing from all constraints or incentives present in the everyday politics of Eigen-Sinn. In standard parlance, the word has pejorative overtones, referring to ‚obstreperous, obstinate’ behavior, usually of children. The ‚discompounding' of writing it as Eigen-Sinn stresses its root signification of ‚one's own sense, own meaning’. It is semantically linked to aneignen (appropriate, reappropriate, reclaim)." (The History of Everyday Life. Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life)

Eigensinn has often been used to describe something, that labor historians see as positive: ignoring bosses ordering one to produce during the entire time of working hours and instead talking with co-workers, exchanging jokes, and having fun with each other - and away from bosses. Yet this exclusion, that Eigensinn is premised upon, being with each other alone, can also be directed towards others: disliking those who they feel disrupt their work, or their life or their enjoyable time. One can see this often in the way people relate to corporate diversity standards: it feels something inconveniencing them, ordering them in ways that affects them, and something they subvert and undermine in various acts of everyday life. Say, making jokes at the expense of it, doing something they know is wrong, or trying to put it into question for the enjoyment of the conflict for instance. A historian has called this exclusionary aspect the "dark side" of Eigensinn. Workers who feel in their work mistreated, denigrated, or elsewise their personal authority diminished practice exclusion that might direct itself towards bosses. But the underlying logic of individual autonomy and self-assertion can also regularly be directed towards other people, towards those they feel they can denigrate and dislike being restricted in this sense of autonomy. And the logic of this exclusion is, itself, a way that is already preconceived in our actions we do living our life. Without thinking, we already form thoughts and ideas making sense of it, that stabilise and reproduce these thoughts.