Armin
16d ago
It depends on the person and the context. As with sexuality, where bisexuality or queereness is a political label more often than not, in an European context calling yourself black or "native" is completely dependent on your political ideology.
Armin
3mo ago
The Redpilling of the American public intellectual?
Being extremely online, using both X and Substacks and having used them for several years, I cannot not notice a process of redpilling of many US-opinion makers, both blue and grey tribe members.
Elon Musk and Marc Andressen are the first obvious examples, with both of them having directly followed and quoted members of the Dissident Rights (Andressen some days ago tagged Covfefe Anon in a post). Musk in particular speaks often with figures like Indian Bronson, Cremièux and Hanania, all of them supporters of the HBD and "liberal-racist" or "liberal-realist" (still fun that we are talking about an Indian, a Jew and a Palestinian).
Then we have the old New Atheism and IDW intellectuals gang like Steven Pinker, Jonathan Haidt and others. Their contribution to progressive criticism is not new, but from what I see on X, on the wake of the Harvard controversy, they are talking an harder turn. I cannot confirm because it is only an impression from who they interact with on X.
We have the "Silicon Valley Galaxy", the network of Musk-supporters based in California, with people like Mike Solana (another gay man) exorting the virtues of nationalism and communism-bashing on his wildly popular newsletter.
Nate Silver is a very fun example. A gay Jew who, in the last year, took an hard turn against progressivism because of Covid criticism and the purges that came from it, and now on his substack is attacking the left at every turn, attracting the very entertaining hate of the academic crowd on every post.
Also an individual like Noah Smith, while still completely faithful to the Neoliberal project, began to heavily criticize the progressives, saying that they are way more dangerous than the right.
I am sure that there are other names I forgot.
All of this to say that I see a change of opinion of public figures that, in the year 2016, would have been for sure allies of the Democrats against a Trumpian state. Obviously the change of opinion of twitter-based figures, online characters and academic eretics is not a change of opinion of the PMC at large, but for sure is more that the Dissident Right could have hoped for some years ago.
Armin
2mo ago
Bryan Caplan complaining on X that Mason U is introducing mandatory Just Society courses; https://twitter.com/bryan_caplan/status/1760048714847064146
It looks Conquest's Second Law is still strong as ever. And I guess Caplan's libertarianism will ask for some intervention against it that will never work.
Armin
2mo ago
I watched the video you linked. Nothing, at this point, will change my idea that American Leftism is only the left-wing version of libertarianism
"Are the drug dealers and homeless bothering you? Why do you bother?" is a complete abdication of any social responsability towards the others and the fellow man.
Armin
4mo ago
As an European coming from the outside, I had no idea how much power is in the hands of Jewish and pro-Zionist donors in the matters of american academia. And, reasoning about it, I think that for European-Americans it should be a clear bell of alarm; the Jewish donors will tolerate whatever anti-European, child mauling or intersectional feminism, but will never falter at Jewish interests.
Armin
2mo ago
The surge of normie family women and Moral Foundation Theory
A lot has been written on how marriage and long term relationships, at least in the Anglo-saxon contest, move women right from the left. While I think this assessment is generally correct, anecdotic evidence that I gathered around tell me that is not exactly right.
Context: Every month I begin to see some of my female friends and acquaintances, generally middle-upper class women, getting married and having children (age=27 - 32). After the birth their social profiles become typical of a mother with a child; continuous social media posts of their children, mom's initiatives, kindergardens, lovely picture with their newly wed husbands etc But it was very curious to see that this sudden change of social media posting have not changed their past habit of "left-wing posting" about Palestine, gay marriage, feminism etc. Instead, it accelerated a lot.
Sometimes ago, someone here was talking about Moral Foundation Theory and how left and right (and men and women) are different from each other, and how mainstream marriage culture follows more the conservative moral framework than the leftists framework.
But I would like to add that, in my opinion, we are seeing a shift of moral mainstream and normie society going from following the Authority/Sanctity/Loyalty to the Care/Fairness framework. If this happen, the consequence is that people following the rightists moral framework will never find refuge in mainstream family-making society, because this society is becoming morally Leftists. I do not think that we have ever seen, in the history of humanity, a shift like this.
Armin
5mo ago
Do men and women political radicalization work differently?
Everyone of us know how riots, revolts and political radicalism are born; a segment of the population, resented or alienated by material means (they are too poor or too isolated by the access to political power, and they revolt by necessity) decide to adopt countercultural ideologies, often violent and revolutionary, in order to destroy the status quo and access the means of power.
But what if our model is obsolete, because we applied it to men and masculinity?
Being a middle-upper class European man, I have a lot of access, both personal and social, to my peers and to what they think. Last day, an homicide made by a men towards his girlfriend happened in Italy, and an enormous cultural war has started with all the related news (including the sister of the victim advocating a "cultural revolution", shame campaign by the media, storms of social media posts by women, and the "fascist" right-wing government immediately folding, promising some kind of introduction of sexual (ergo lgbt) education in the schools).
Well, the model of radicalization that I observed is the following; young, often upper-middle class women with no material problems and often with prestigious (but not high-earning) jobs adopting the position of intersectional or radical feminism in few days, moving quite a lot the Overton window to the left. From this, the following observations I gathered;
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Women's political radicalization happen in different echo-chambers compared to the men's ones. While men's radicalization happens because of lack of material means, in women's case it looks like the more they happen to be privileged, the more they radicalize. As if material means have no matter for their well being, and the high status position is the source, not the solution, for their growing radicalization.
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Could be that the de-materialization of post-Marxist politics happened because women are anti-materialists themselves and do not care about all this stuff? Okay all the discourses on post-industrialization, post-marxism, Foucault or whatever, but I do not think that, politically speaking, women cares at all about the well being of their societies at large.
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Cultural-war-speaking, another demonstration that there is no opposition to the women's tears and resentement in Western Society, and we have still not produced the necessary antibodies to resist them. Far left organisations and ideologies have it far too easy, because they are free to propagandize using traditional medias and social network as an instrument of expansion.
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A lot of normie women fell in the vortex of radicalizations. But unlike real radicalized womens, if you speak to them personally, they will not strike back at you. A distinction still exist between the mentally-ill woman and the woman who is only pushed by social media and social pressure to act.
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And that I am lucky to have a girlfriend that does not give a damn about social medias at large.
Armin
5mo ago
If all of this is true, the trick is simply understanding how to switch these masses of women to your side, and let them enforce whatever policy you create. The problem here is, imho, that the entrenchment of female power and powerful media has created a block that is too strong to destroy.
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
2mo ago
I does not understand why cutting of public funding should fix the radical left problem in universities. In my country the wokest universities are the private funded ones where rich people go, the same with private media etc.
Armin
6mo ago
In my opinion the difference between pre-modern and modern retelling are the following;
- Retelling now is mainly born from corporate request based on ideology and not from the necessity of adapting a foreign work to the local audience.
- But at least 19th century nationalist retelling are good because people that were doing that were good in the arts. The retelling now comes from the contemporary anglo-saxon woke tradition, that is simply not as good at telling stories.
- And if the retelling come from non-corporate sources, it means that it came from some black or minority ressentement-obsessed person in the West. The Unknown author that rewrote the Myth of Orpheus for sure did not despised the Greeks. I am sure that the modern poc reteller actually despise the Europeans very much.
Armin
4mo ago
As in the past, I still not believe that it will exist any anti-refugee movement started and staffed by women, also on the basis of intrasexual competition. There was none when the rape indexes went up in European countries that received immigrants, and as a consequence I believe that, if there will be any sort of "sexual tension" in the future, there will be no reaction from women at all.
Armin
3mo ago
Everytime I read about Sub-saharian, especially West African, militaries and governments and alliances, I always think: Do they exist?
Wikipedia tells me that the Nigerine Armed Forces decided to expand from 25.000 to 100.000 men in the next five years. Is this real? Is this gonna happen? The Nigerine Armed Forces exists at all or it is something written on paper as a good chunk of the Afghan Army was?
This Alliance of the Sahel exists? Or it is made only by a bunch of rich tribal leader and "soldiers" surrounded by thugs and Wagner mercenaries, who decided in a single meeting on what to do?
Armin
5mo ago
Braverman out for having said that the police is way harder on right-wing groups than on pro-palestinians David Cameron in as a Foreign Minister
I really would like to understand how leftists can think that the tories are a right-wing party. I think it is clear which direction they are taking. The point is, do they have any strategy or it is a reflection of what the upper-cadrè of the tories think?
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
3mo ago
Yes, but it also about one of the main differences between Protestants and Catholics, the division and opposition between Faith and Works.
In Catholic teachings, salvation come both by faith and work. It implies also that, if you are not a good Catholic (as everyone else, because we are all sinners) at least you can find salvation by work (helping your communities, joining the public rites etc).
That is why you encounter two peculiar phenomena here that I do not see in protestant countries;
- Atheist youngsters, often females and feminists, helping with public rites (celebration of the Saints, community and city-based religious and folk festivals etc), mantaining churches and other location of cult, or simply art-posting on Instagram how amazing all of this is.
- Absolutely debauched public figures, often divorcees, people with illegitimate sons or multiple partners, cheaters and partygoers, all of them publicy sustaining the Church and the rites that I said before, and nobody batting an eye.
That is why it is absolutely hilarious when someone try to import protestant behavior here, like intersectional feminists trying to persuade ours that we need to burn churches, or local politicians (often left-wing) yelling at the population that drinking or partying or whoring is immoral, and being systematically ignored.
Armin
3mo ago
I am Catholic from a Catholic culture. Damn, I would be very surprised if the conservatives did not engaged in drinking games and threesomes!
I always found hilarious how, in Protestants and Anglo-saxon countries, you are expected to behave in private as you behave with your public persona. I understand that the accusation of hypocrisy are easy to do in these cases and are a fruit too sweet to not pick it, but still it does not registers in my brain.
Armin
3mo ago
How is the situations with visits, utents and growth on the Motte?
I have the impression that this place is becoming, month by month, emptier. There is some kind of plan of expansion, or we will continue to tender at the same population?
Armin
3mo ago
What? The UK outsources recruitment to a an external company?
When I read stuff like this, muy blood boils.
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:
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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:
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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.
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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
4mo ago
Regarding your last period, I agree, and I think it is noteworthy to say that the "no enemies to the Right" works way less for the Right than the Marcusian "no enemies to the Left" works for the Left. No amount of red terrorism, entrenching with Stalinism and Maoism, online furry and trans communities and femcel feminism has been enough to damage the left-brand among the western upper-class.
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
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
Inspired by a comment from Twitter;
Everyone is talking about the US relative decline, but they are really flexing his power in a way that we have not seen from Iraq
In one year they;
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Destroyed every possible reconciliation between Europe and Russia
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Became a next exporter of natural resources and the ones from who a lot of allies depend
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They basically sent a fuck off to Germany, and the Germans not only are not complaining, but are applauding
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They strongly limited the military of power of Russia with few money.
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China is slowing her growth, and they created a ring of allies in the Pacific
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The cultural grip on the West is becoming stronger, and the US successfully fused Neoliberalism and Leftism in a zombie ideology who is, against all odds, successfully working
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The pro-Atlantist view have never been so strong.
I doubt that these strategies will work or be healthy in the long term, but it is incredible to see how an ill and polarized country can still do whatever it wants without any reaction.
Much of Europe? I think is something that is common only in the most lib part of Berlin where all the americanized women and foreign expats gathers. Here vegetarianism is almost unknown, and also in big cities like Bruxelles I have seen meat everywhere, also in èlites institutions canteens.
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