Armin
6mo ago
Vibe shift?
I lost count of how many anglos, jews and anglo-jews on the center-left/left that, in the past days, had a "Conversion on the road to Damascus", openly admitting on Twitter that their views on the Left were utterly wrong and that they had no idea their side was so full of apologists for jew-slaughter. And I am talking about big figures, including some of the loudest neoliberal mouths, admitting grudgingly that the Right-wing view of academia had some points.
Let's say that this reckoning mood last more than two weeks and the inevitable Israeli reaction on Gaza; It is possible that we are beginning to see a realignement from the upper middle class on immigration in general and on inclusion and diversity in particular?
In my view, there are still some enormous obstacle to shift like these, primarly the enormous influence of academia on journalism and èlites policy and opinion-making in the west, and the machine of the anglo-left working in case of another menace from Trump, that can rapidly rebuild the ranks. Another interesting side of the discourse is what will happen in Europe, where it is true that there are way less Jews, but the Right has way more influence between young and important people. By tasting the environment, almost everyone apart from the aggravated minorities and feminists groups are very, very angry about all of this.
I do not know if it is ok to post this here or in the Gaza thread, if it is wrong I will move it there.
Armin
6mo ago
A bit unrelated, but this give credence to the Fisted By Foucault theory on how Anglo-Saxon Academia is still an anti-systemic force. The Biden administration was quick to condemn and give support in any case. The Marcusian strategy "no enemy to the left" still holds strong, but at this point not many people are going to support the most extreme left-wing cause.
Btw, probably the most important point for the right that came from all of this is the fact that "decolonization", as all Marxian jargon like Anti-Imperialism, is only an academic term to justify whetever happens to the enemy.
Armin
8mo ago
A bit of brainstorming; What will be the status of the relationship between men and women in the West? Do you see the "gender wars" losing steams, or becoming a definitive battleground as mandated by Conflict Theory?
The tension is caused exclusively by media/capital/US propaganda, or it is an inevitable consequence of women entering public life and becoming another side of another friend/enemy dichotomy?
Armin
8mo ago
Btw, as in Italy, another example of how any right-wing party in the West is going to adopt liberal policies at the end.
Armin
8mo ago
I have the exact same problem with Baldur's Gate 3. Tried to modify the intensity of the fans, but to no avail. It pisses me off that I need to rebuild a computer from the ground because of temperature control. Never seen a problem like this in all my life.
Armin
1yr ago
How many men do you know that would answer differently? I realise this is one of your weaker assertions regarding gender differences (with the stronger one being "It is not possible for them that something contemporary can be worse than something present in the past"), but to my eyes answering earnestly with anything other than "now" is a mark of edginess: you must either be so dramatic that you refuse to let yourself consider the less-glamorous parts of your value function, or so psychologically deviant from the grillpilled median that you genuinely would trade off arguable spiritual benefits of past societies for all our material advances in technology, medicine, peace et cetera. Ironically, the only people over the age of 18 I know irl who would answer differently from "now" are women in my family: my mother who would return to the Soviet Union per the "dramatic" exception, and her mother who would choose some point in time before 1900 for being a religious extremist.
Notice that these discussions were not serious intellectual inquiries about the past, they were more of light topics when you shot out random questions. And men almost always answered with any epoch that you can think of. Obviously anyone put always first the "but the medicine", but that was logical and assured from the beginning, I still have not met someone that likes to die because of the lacks of antibiotics.
If you have come to be known as the "actually arguing to retvrn to the past" guy in your social circles, consider that your arguments about more detailed pros and cons of past societies might no longer actually be received on their own merits either. People might not be willing to entertain an "isn't it curious how quickly they could build a bridge or train station in the late 1800s compared to now?" in the spirit of intellectual inquiry if the expectation is that it will be used as ammo for "...and therefore we should restore the hereditary monarchy", and if you are a woman in $current_year, pointing out that the hereditary monarchy entailed wrongs against your gender that are nowadays treated as blasphemous is as convenient a way to shut down the discussion as any. In other words, your problem may not actually be that women are politically qualitatively different, but rather that you haven't found a social circle that agrees with your politics, and it is merely a downstream annoyance that women have a particularly quick and easy way to weaponise the disagreement.
This is a weird assumption from your side: I am not the "retvrn guy" neither in my circles nor personally speaking, and my social circle is radically diverse in terms of ideologies and nationalities. And again, it happens also when I met people that do not know me well or very well.
Armin
1yr ago
Yours is a good post.
But probably my message and what I wanted to say was not so clear; I am not condemning the logic behind the capital gender reasoning, because it is perfectly fine.
Armin
1yr ago
I mentioned here many times that I consider the gender (sex) divide the greatest factor in our model of understanding modern political thought and action.
Background; middle-class male, young, Catholic family, Mediterranean, living in a big, poor city. Moved to Central Europe to work in a big èlite public institution with many young people, especially females. History of belonging to Marxist organisations in the past btw.
As a passionate about history, I normally talk about it, especially in a highly-educated environment where discussions about complex topics are the norm.
What I noticed in the past year it is astounding and moulded a lot of my thought. Every time I talk with women about history, and the topics fall on some past event/political regime/ideology/whatever, there is a lot of disinterest towards it from the women's side. Not disinterest in the sense of "I do not care", because as I said it is a highly-educated environment where being uncaring about this kind of thing is uncool, but disinterest in the sense of:
"I understand that in the past things worked a certain way, but the past is always worse than now because women had it worse".
From there, after it happened dozens of times with dozens of different women, I elaborated:
Women are the true accelerationist.
I could not elaborate or argue about past political or moral issues or ideologies or sovrastructures, because, from the other side, the argument is always that every behaviour or ideology of the past is ontologically evil because it discriminated against women.
I will never forget how when I was arguing about how 19th-century European states had probably a higher state-capacity than contemporary European states, I was accused of sexism because I expressed a preference for a non-contemporary political structure. The same happened when I mentioned how I admire Charles De Gaulle (because Macron, while being bad, is better than him because he is more feminist).
The most amazing moment was when I said to a group of women (yes, a lot of weird moments this year) that the loss of Church participation alienated a lot of people and diminished the sense of belonging and social participation of the community in the public thing. They agreed with me (!) but still for them, it is better now because they prefer a more isolated society but with more feminism.
Women are true accelerationist because the consequence of feminism has been a weirdo para-futurism philosophy but without fascism. Everything that can be conducted to the past is suspected as part of a reactionary plot to be judged on moral grounds. No detached interests in History per se, but only moral condemnation of everything that is not the "current year".
For me, it was fascinating to discover how males and females consider history, especially when the topic of "in which historical epoch would you like to live?" and every woman answer "now".
The biggest consequence of this sex divide is, imho, that a feminist liberal society has a huge gap in understanding the context when society begins to decline after drifting from some past ideology or structure. It is not possible for them that something contemporary can be worse than something present in the past.
I would like to receive some input on my "theory" from the residents of the motte, expressed in the English language which is better than mine.
PS: for people who are curious, I never received any sort of cancellation or consequence for my brazen rhetorical behaviour. Europe is not as woke as the US, and I am a kinda of "high-status male" for several reason, so I noticed that women tolerate way more whatever I say.
Armin
1yr ago
I am reading the first book of 1632, the Isekai/historical novel by Eric Flint.
Basically, a West Virginia fictional town is teleported in the year 1632, during the Thirty Years War, and the usual scenario happen, technology triumph on the less advanced, the future breeds social and economical innovation, a cast of character is attracted to the colonists from the future etc
What is very odd is the sentiment that lives in the novel, published in 2000.
Resuming it in bullet points;
-
The protagonist is a WASP, no-nonsense ex-coal miner, who has the dream of rebuilding a new USA in Germany, with a Constitution, a Bill of Rights etc. He marries a Sephardic Jew girl.
-
His political enemy is another WASP, but this time from the East Coast, rich guy with a pretty wife, xenophobic and anti-immigration, but that is constantly criticised for being a de-facto "globalist". ("He is not from this town, he is a rich dude who lived in London and Canada and everywhere else without stopping!")
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The heroes of the story are the local members of the UMWA union, a mix of WASP and Italian and Irish coal miners, who defend the town first and are the major supporters of the protagonist's agenda.
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There is a character in the protagonist ruling council, who is a 50s WASP feminist woman famous for being an ex-radical Ivy-League student who tossed Molotovs around and turned high-school teacher. She is one of the main supporters of the protagonist, always bickering with him or the UMWA, but in the end she is always supported by them.
-
There are a bunch of female characters who during the story demonstrate intelligence, combat attitudes etc, and the protagonist, despite having some small moral problems at the beginning, supports them in their actions and dreams.
The oddness is reading a novel, written by a Liberal with in mind the liberalism of the late 90s. The white coal miners are all union supporters and pro-immigration, the feminists like them, and the very-white West Virginian town is lauded as an impoverished but proud and tight community hostile to the rich bastards from the big cities. Diversity is not nominated apart from two or three times. The greatest oddity, by the way, is the lingering anti-Catholic sentiment, where the majority of the Catholics are closed-minded, and anti-freedom of religion, while the Protestants are essentially the good guy.
What an odd time machine.
Armin
1yr ago
I can assure that, being a bit in the insides, the first institution that is building DEI is the EU. National Institutions are still very well behind, but the EU is, starting from the de facto uber-feminist approach that they always had, trying to spin things in that direction.
For example, last year there was a cry from France and other countries that the EU internal comms suggested that we shoudl use Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas to not be offensive. The internal communication was deleted and excuses were done, we were happy that sometimes there was a victory etc
Fast forward this year, and without any sort of communication, 70% of the departments switched to Happy Holidays. No order from above, no comm, no conspiracy, simple because the people doing the comms are female and left-wing.
As you see, no victory.
Armin
1yr ago
A question; it is possible to know the statistics of the motte? Regarding user growth, number of users and comments and excetera.
Armin
1yr ago
He did nothing, from what we know until know. The problem is purely political, because the deputy that was elected as a symbol of the fight against oppression of immigrants in the fields and against the right-wing rhetoric of NGO that steal public money in the name of inclusion and integration actually has a wife who is chief of an NGO that stole money for this reason and who imported immigrants to work in the fields.
Armin
1yr ago
Because taxes are very high, a lot of the Italian economy is a bit grey, especially SMEs and local shops and sellers, and the population is old. A lot of people doing so can evade a bit of taxes.
Armin
1yr ago
The psychological mechanism is less "Orders from above" and more "I am an enlightened journalist who is above the deplorable working class who votes right wing and likes cash", I guess.
Armin
1yr ago
The first month of the new Italian Government and Parliament has passed, and we had a bit of small culture wars that were in majority very amusing;
The first African-born and black member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Aboubakar Soumahoro, was elected for the Italian Left and Green Alliance. Soumahoro is know as a farming trade unionist, fighting for the rights of African-born illegal farmers working in the Italian, especially southern, fields. He was elected in an iron-granted center-left coalition college, and was one of the star of the Left, entering the Parliament with dirty boots, symbolizing his struggle for farmers. Ensuring elegies by left-wing journals, anti-racism as a flag, and promising a lot of progressive/left reforms etc
After less than 15 days, one center-left newspaper drop the bomb: Soumahoro's wife, chief of one of the immigration NGO that were part of this left-wing affiliated network of NGO and trade unions, stole millions of euros in public money destined for illegal immigrants, using them to buy property, dresses, Gucci handbags etcetera. While the immigrants and ex-collaborators of Soumahoro denunced, immediately after, that Africans were left without heating, food and water, and obliged to work in the fields under terrible conditions.
Immediately there is a storm, the Italian Left MPs denounce him, and other newspapers let know that there were a lot of doubt from many people in the coalition when Soumahoro was candidated, and at the end it was a forced decision from the top. Soumahoro first says that he does not know anything, than he published a video where he cries on camera. He went then to a TV transmission, saying that he does not know anything, and that his wife is autonomus. After a bit he suspended himself.
Way to go, I guess.
Another minor war was on credit card payments. The government permitted private business to not accept electronic pament under a certain sum, and the entire cadrè of center-of-left journalist began a 20 days straight, that is still going on, campaign of how much they hate cash and how much they use only credit and debit cards when they pay, and how much they hate people using cash.
Useless to say, this was not a very good tactic when a good chunk of your population or does not have a credit card at all, or struggle to mantain their small business in front of high taxes and high cost of energy.
Fratelli d'Italia reached 32% of popularity in the last polls.
Armin
1yr ago
More than the macho nationalism, which was very present also in the past, is the Libertarianism that probably makes the women flee.
There is nothing more repelling imho of the freedom-loving men who claim to be the only ones free in our society. Women cares about community, the problem is that the global/left communities appear more stable and welcoming and normal that the libertarian community.
Armin
1yr ago
I agree with your main thesis, and I have nothing to add. The only anecdote I can add is that I have taken public transit for all my life in one of the most dangerous European cities, with still their majority group as natives, without any problem at almost any hour.
I came to the US, in NYC, for a trip, and at the first public transport trip a black woman spit on the face of my mother, withouth any reason, before fleeing while laughing.
I have no idea how you guys can tolerate that.
Armin
1yr ago
I am not an English Native, and in my language male-female is a normal thing to say or write.
Armin
1yr ago
I am convinced that the Sex Divide is the greatest political engine of today, and that a big chunk of the culture war is based on the existance of this divide, and the inability of society to understand that political differences between males and females have an enormous biological basis.
After I finally understood this concept, I began to "notice", being always passionate about politics and speaking about it, that the discourses and the nature of the topic I discussed with people were and are heavily genderized.
Having a political or cultural discussion with a female is, in general, radically different from having one with a male, not only regarding the topics of interests per se (males more interested in economics or raw politics, female more interested in immigration, equality or similar topics), but also regarding "how" to approach a discussion.
I feel way more free talking with males, because I always had the impression, confirmed 95% of the times, that I can be more open and direct with what I felt without receiving a backslash, that can be personal (simply the person screaming at you or hating you) or social (person beginning to talk with other people in your social network) (NB: I am not American and I do not live in a very polarized society). Apart from the political extremists and activists that you can meet, the following things happened often:
-
Me and the other male have a disagreement, that can be harsh or about an hot topic, but that resolve itself in a shake of hand.
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We disagree on a lot of topic, but also agree on other ones, making the discussion constructive in itself.
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I discover that the other male have a lot of, uh, hidden opinions that he does not reveal in his network, often because of female backslash.
In general, I love to talk about politics or culture with other middle or low class males, because I always "received" something in exchange after the discussion, something that can be a new reflection on a topic, an earnest discovering of new knowledge, or simply understanding more some concepts.
Meanwhile, apart from a selected group of very close female friends and a selected other few, almost all the discussion with females ended with a disaster. In spite of me trying to move in a different manner, being more gentle and less direct, and understanding that I need to adapt to other people when I talk about something, the discussions simply does not start well and end well. What happens is:
-
We have a disagreement, and at this point the discussion or close itself ("It is useless to continue, why we should?") or degenerate in a very uncomfortable discussion where the woman put herself as an emotional victim of what we are talking about.
-
If the discussion does not degenerate but continues, it is always redirected to morality or feeling or about a generic "natural law". At this point if I try to redirect the discussion negating the opposing point (I do not agree with your morality or I do not care about this morality) it simply degenerate again in a morality context, where your worth as individual is put on a public pedestal.
The result of all of this, after years of experience... is that I do not talk about these kind of topics with women anymore, apart from a selected few. When I have this kind of conversation I always strive for earning something, that can be knowledge, human connection or shared experiences. Why doing these with women, when the things that you can earn are statistically negative?
Adding to what I said, I also need to mention that, after lowering down the kind of topics and approaches that I have with women, both my dating life and romantic life radically improved. I do not know if it is a coincidence or not.
Armin
1yr ago
Utterly evilness is thinking that "Human Global Welfare" is something we should strive for, instead of giving to your people. In my morality system, community and ethnos is everything, and as we consider a Father who does not prefer his Son to other people an evil person, I cannot tolerate people who believe in global constructs of human welfare.
Armin
1yr ago
Reading about the FTX dèbacle and what the founder and his friends thought (especially about their EA space) made me understand how much utterly alien is to me the entire EA movement.
Watching the videos, the blogposts, all the infos that are getting out, made me reflect on "how" they think money should be used by rich people in order to maximise happiness and saving people and in particular the entire world.
Maybe it is because of my particular illiberal upbringing (Euro-mediterranean Catholic family), but I cannot fathom how this ideology is, for my eyes, "Utterly Evil".
How can you, a rich person, focusing yourself on improving astract things as the entire world, financing no-profits and calculating metaphysical moral earning based on how much money you are investing in EA?
Why not helping your community, focusing on art, infrastructure and knowledge, instead of giving money to global moral enterprises? It utterly repulse me on a philosophical and moral level, and this is probably the reason I never bought in EA.
If this is the alternative to the woke/progressive view, I have no idea of how the Western World can remotely fix its problems. Am I the only one who feels like this?
As certain as the Sun that daws in the Morning, with the new Italian Right-wing government there is a new refugee scandalous crisis.
A NGO ship full of immigrants, after picking them in the front of the Libyan Coast, came in front of Italian coasts asking for a safe port. Crisis ensures.
Considering that only in the last 30 days over 10.000 immigrants came illegaly in Italy, it is not like it is the first time. As always, the NGO ship menaced that all the people on board are basically dying, that the government should take them and if they are not they are complicit in killing hundreds.
Now the ship came to the port after an agreement where they could let disembark only children and ill people before leaving... and after the first thing happened the ship refused to leave the port. To add to the confusion, a newly elected MP from the left-wing opposition, born in the Ivory Coast, is right now aboard the ship.
Another mess in the Mediterranean migratory crisis, who has no end in sight and has a lot of very powerful forces that try to obstacolate every immigration control.
Armin
1yr ago
Uncanny how these results continue to be replicated in every society and every culture and moment.
Almost if wokeness have some kind of biological factor.
It depends on how fast they can turn them to voters thanks to more lax citizenship laws. Germany absolutely cratered theirs under this new government for this reason.
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