Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."
User ID: 342
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
And as a tactical choice it is itself a ideological commitment. It’s not merely ‘rapid change’- it requires an acceptance of top down impositions, rationalism, the idea of de novo societal shifts implemented by a vanguard party. I reject all of that ideologically.
You are right to point out that the distinction between tactics and principles is not as clean as I made it out to be. But I'm skeptical that recourse to revolution is always indicative of the deep ideological commitments that you portray it as having. Whatever it may entail ideologically, I don't think it's a good criteria for cleaving the global ideological space at the joints.
The American Revolution was, by most accounts, based on the principles of classical liberalism; principles that I imagine Hlynka and his fellow travelers would endorse wholeheartedly. Was there something ideologically objectionable about the American Revolution just because it took the form of a revolution? Does it have to be denounced? Were the founding fathers necessarily committed to a certain "top down rationalist" view of human nature that true Red Tribers would have to reject?
Or consider the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which instituted an Islamic theocracy. They certainly claim to be following a conservative tradition of some kind; it might not be your preferred tradition, but it's a tradition. Are they too committed to an Enlightenment rationalist view of human nature? Does Islamic theocracy share a deep philosophical affinity with Marxist communism that has hitherto gone unnoticed? And the American Revolution too?
The most reasonable conclusion, on my view, is not that revolutions are a result of people having a deep ideological commitment to the idea of a top down rationally organized society. Revolutions are a result of people wanting power, and having the means and opportunity to seize it. This is universal to left and right, old and new.
I agree with much of the DR that gays are perverts who shouldn’t be allowed near kids, that women shouldn’t vote, etc. But my reasoning and therefore implementation of these ideas is very different.
Would you be willing to elaborate on this? I'm just curious.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
There appears to have been a mild resurgence of Hlynkaism on the forum. This is concerning, because I believe that the core tenets of Hlynkaism are deeply confused.
Fuck it I’m taking up the hlynka posting mantle- they’re the same thing. They’re both revolutionary ideologies calling for to radically remake society in a short period of time. They merely disagree about who gets cushy sinecures doing stupid bullshit(black lesbians or white men). The DR weirds out classical conservatives once they figure out it’s not a meme.
It's not entirely clear what's supposed to be the determining criteria of identity here. Are wokeism and the DR the same because they're both revolutionary, or are they the same because they only differ on who gets the cushy sinecures? At any rate, I'll address both points.
Revolution (defined in the most general sense as rapid dramatic change, as opposed to slow and gradual change) is a tactic, not an ideological principle. You can have adherents of two different ideologies who both agree on the necessity of revolution, and you can have two adherents of the same ideology who disagree on the viability of revolution as a tactic. Although Marxism is typically (and correctly) seen as a revolutionary ideology, there have been notable Marxists who denied the necessity of revolution for Marxism. They instead wanted to achieve communism through a series of gradual reforms using the existing democratic state apparatus. But does that suddenly make them into conservatives? Their tactics are different from typical Marxists, but their core underlying Marxist ideological principles are the same. I doubt that any of the Hlynkaists on this forum would look at the reformist-Marxists and say "ah, a fellow conservative-gradualist! Truly these are my people; they too are lovers of slow, cautious change".
"Tradition above all" is an empty formalism at best, and incoherent at worst. If tradition is your sole overriding source of moral truth, then we just wind up with the old Euthyphro dilemma: what happens when the tradition that you happened to be born into isn't worth defending? What if it's actively malicious? "Support tradition" is a formal principle because it makes no mention of the actual content of that tradition. If you are living in a Nazi or communist (or whatever your own personal avatar of evil is) regime whose roots extend back further than living memory, are conservatives obligated to support the existing "traditional" regime? Perhaps they're allowed to oppose it, but only if they do so in a slow and gradual manner. You can understand why this response might not be appealing to those who are being crushed under the boot of the regime. And at any rate, you can only arrive at the position of opposing the regime in the first place if you have an alternative source of substantive ethical principles that go beyond the formal principles of "support tradition" and "don't change things too fast".
As for the assertion that wokeism and the DR only differ on "who gets the cushy sinecures"; this is simply incorrect. They have multiple substantive policy disagreements on LGBT rights, traditional gender roles, immigration, foreign policy, etc.
Hlynkaism to me represents a concerning abdication of reflection and nuance, in favor of a self-assured "I know what's what, these radical Marxist-Islamo-fascists can't pull a fast one on me" attitude. This is emblematic of much that is wrong with contemporary (and historical as well) political discourse. The principle goal of philosophical reflection is to undermine the foundation of this self-assuredness. Actually, you don't know what's what. Your enemies might know things that you don't; their positions might be more complicated and nuanced than you originally thought. Undoubtedly the realm of political discourse would become more productive, or at least more pleasant, if this attitude of epistemic humility were to become more widespread.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
Although there is variation in the opinions of individual mods, my impression of them as a group is that they certainly have no interest in enforcing an “HBD consensus” (in either direction).
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
a choice between the rules as a credible institution or his continued participation
A third option is to enforce the rules, but not via permabans.
Permabans should be reserved for the most egregious trolls, spambots, or accounts that are otherwise doing harm to the forum in some way. The way I see it, there’s almost never a reason to permaban a good faith poster (which Hlynka obviously was). I would set the maximum suspension length somewhere in the range of 6-12 months.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
I have consistently maintained that banning him was a mistake. Although he might be prideful enough that even if the invitation was extended, he wouldn’t come back.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
Today's art world insists on newness above all.
They say they do, but whether they actually do is another question. And at any rate, constant newness is not a reasonable demand. Creative work always falls into regular patterns; in both the sciences and the arts, the majority of work consists in simply filling out the details of a given paradigm, rather than actually pushing at the boundaries of the paradigm itself. True innovation is hard, and at this point in human history, the possibility space of the traditional plastic arts has been explored pretty thoroughly.
A sculpture that consists of, say, a few loose pipes and concrete slabs strewn about the floor, which are alleged to represent the struggle for Palestinian liberation, is just as much of a genre piece as a representational painting of the deposition of Christ. It follows genre conventions, it shares a clear lineage with other works in the same group, etc. It's just that "abstract sculpture paired with a leftist artist statement" is a politically favored genre, whereas "representational Christian painting" is a politically disfavored genre.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
So what is your basic definition of the Red Tribe, exactly?
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
Red Tribers are somewhere between uninterested in and actively hostile to intellectual/cultural production (by which I mean things like scholarship or art)
That depends on what you mean by "Red Tribe" (everyone seems to have a slightly different definition).
It's not particularly hard to list right-wing intellectuals and artists. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Pound, Eliot. There was an intimate link between Italian futurism and Mussolini's fascism.
I think Yarvin's concept of the dark elves is useful here: internal traitors to the Blue Tribe who align with Red Tribe on certain key issues and provide intellectual and cultural support to the reds. If your definition of a Red Triber is a person who prioritizes "income/general social status" over intellectual development, then sure, ex hypothesi such a person will take little interest in cultural production. But you're ignoring all the dark elves who very much are in the business of thinking "conservative" thoughts, and as others in this thread have pointed out their perspective has been systematically censored in elite institutions.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
Sure, if they already have that capability and it’s only regulations holding them up then it is real self driving.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
Self driving = ability to do 100% of what a competent human driver can do in any location, without geofencing.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
He knows reds don't have the temperament or interest to "show up" for museums or libraries
Well... isn't that just a skill issue then?
Regardless of the institutional form it takes, there will always be culture of some kind, and it will indeed belong to those who show up. A purely destructive strategy with no positive program for cultural production of your own is not viable in the long term.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
I'm the biggest enemy of AI art on TheMotte, and even I recognize that a lot of AI paintings are pretty darn good! It's not at the point where it completely obviates the need for human artists (which is why people are still employed as professional artists as of March 2025), but in the range of tasks where it is successful, it's clearly good at what it does.
I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that AI does nothing. It does a lot. It's just a question of whether and when we're going to get true AGI.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
I've always been more skeptical of the singularity than the average mottizen -- not outright dismissive, but skeptical. I've become more confident in my skepticism over the past year after seeing the diminishing rate of progress in frontier models and the relatively disappointing launch of GPT-4.5. I feel more assured now that currently known techniques won't lead to AGI.
Not to say that there won't be impact to individual jobs and industries, of course. There are plainly people who find LLMs to be very useful even in their current state, and LLMs aren't going anywhere. But I don't think that o3 or even o4 or o5 will lead to a cataclysm.
some relatively minor additional work
The first 90% of the project takes the first 90% of the time, and the last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the time.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
Can these perspectives be reconciled?
Sure.
Some men evidently accomplish a great deal without being "fit" in the physical sense. And that's perfectly fine for them. That is their "health". But we might still find it regrettable that there are opportunities they never explored, because in the general sense every choice involves forsaking other possibilities and there is always something regrettable in this despite its necessity.
One of the greatest lessons I took from Nietzsche is how to approach things with more nuance. Something can be good, and virtuous, and necessary, and regrettable. Something can be bad, and deleterious, and undesirable, and yet still necessary. You can mix and match.
Is there a good as such? Have not all attempts to define such a thing failed miserably?
There is such a thing as "the good", but it escapes any attempt to define it in terms of basic axioms or repeatable guidelines.
Once upon a time, I did not care much about conventional notions of health, because I quite consciously did not particularly wish to live to advanced age. Now I contemplate that I am rather unlikely to live to hold my grandchildren, and rather likely to leave my wife a widow, all promises to the contrary, and I wish I had not been so foolish in my youth.
You probably just made the wrong decision then. No one ever said that people couldn't just be wrong. There are innumerable healths, which means there are innumerable unhealths as well.
Concrete examples would be really ideal here
Concrete examples illustrating which part, exactly?
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
There is no health as such, and all attempts to define such a thing have failed miserably. Deciding what is health even for your body depends on your goal, your horizon, your powers, your impulses, your mistakes and above all on the ideals and phantasms of your soul. Thus there are innumerable healths of the body; and the more one allows the particular and incomparable to rear its head again, the more one unlearns the dogma of the 'equality of men', the more the concept of a normal health, along with those of a normal diet and normal course of an illness, must be abandoned by our medical men. Only then would it be timely to reflect on the health and illness of the soul and to locate the virtue peculiar to each man in its health - which of course could look in one person like the opposite of health in another. Finally, the great question would still remain whether we can do without illness, even for the development of our virtue; and whether especially our thirst for knowledge and self-knowledge do not need the sick soul as much as the healthy; in brief, whether the will to health alone is not a prejudice, a cowardice and a piece of most refined barbarism and backwardness.
The Gay Science, Book Three, §120
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
2mo ago
I was going to write a top level post about it but I decided not to rush it. The situation is still evolving by the day with the potential for outcomes to swerve wildly, and it will take at least a few months or more to really get perspective on Trump’s actions over the past two weeks.
My main fear here is that we’re going to end up with the worst of both worlds. Europe is already talking about canceling deals with American defense contractors… which is, ok fine, people voted for more isolationism so more isolationism is what we’ll get. But the problem is that we’re still sending aid to Ukraine, on top of freaking out our allies in Europe and making ourselves seem like a less reliable partner.
The idea of being more isolationist is that we get to stop throwing money into the black hole. If we’re still doing that, and everyone hates us anyway, then what’s the point? You either go all in or all out, don’t half ass it.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3mo ago
Is that relevant to your evaluation of whether DOGE should be allowed to seize their headquarters?
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3mo ago
Elon Musk’s DOGE Uses Police to Seize Independent Nonprofit
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency staffers used police and private security to forcefully take over the U.S. Institute of Peace on Monday.
The USIP, an independent nonprofit founded by Congress, had its president, Greg Moose, and its board fired last week by the Trump administration. The Associated Press reported that DOGE workers on Monday had law enforcement escort them into USIP, which is not located in a federal building, after previously being denied access.
“DOGE just came into the building—they’re inside the building—they’re bringing the F.B.I. and brought a bunch of D.C. police,” USIP lawyer Sophia Lin told The New York Times as she and other staff members were forced out of the building.
Obviously, if you wanted to paint Trump as a dangerous authoritarian fascist, this is exactly the sort of thing you'd point to as Exhibit A. So I'm trying to determine if this is actually as bad as it sounds, what the steelman is here, and the extent to which this may or may not have been under the purview of the executive branch's legitimate authority.
The linked article and their website describe USIP as a "private" nonprofit that was "founded by Congress". Obviously, the government using the police to forcibly seize private property due to political differences is not a good look. Presumably there are legal minutiae here that would determine the extent to which this organization is or is not still subject to the government's authority (is any organization "founded by Congress" subject to federal government control in perpetuity?).
As a side note, the Trump administration seems to REALLY hate US assistance to foreign countries and they're doing their damndest to shut it off. USIP describes itself as an "independent organization dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad".
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3mo ago
The tacit agreement was that they wouldn’t have to be capable of fighting their own battles (and in the case of say Germany, a lot of people didn’t want them to be capable of fighting their own battles — the memory of WW2 was still quite fresh when the Berlin Wall fell). For the sake of stability in Europe, the agreement was that countries would become semi-vassals of the US empire in exchange for the US’s protection.
Not to say that the terms of this agreement have to be binding for all eternity. If a new arrangement is needed then so be it. But this idea that European countries did something “wrong” by not maintaining a larger military presence is, I think, lacking in historical context.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3mo ago
You could argue that the mere act of creating art at all is already an admission that there is something deficient or lacking in nature such that it needs to be supplemented by human creation.
And artificial/non-natural subject matter has always existed in art, see for example Hieronymus Bosch or the three headed Jesus paintings.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3mo ago
If all of the policies that would reverse this state of affair are firmly outside the Overton window, then unfortunately it is an inevitability rather than a choice. The choice was made a long time ago.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3mo ago
Close. The issue is that they think they can have European urbanism without a European population.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3mo ago
"Sensible cities and walkable environments" is code for "we want to force people to use public transportation because cars give you too much freedom". And you really do not want to be forced to use public transportation in America.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3mo ago
People in general far prefer natural environments to man-made ones, studies on the topic have tended to show that people find landscapes that depart far from the rule of nature more uncomfortable than those that don't.
Right, but there's a high correlation between the types of people who tend to prefer man-made beauty to natural beauty, and the types of people who tend to become artists. So their own aesthetic preferences get amplified and displayed to the public.
I would be fine with architects building these things if they were just making art for display in a dedicated space.
There have to be limits of some kind, of course. But within reason, I generally lean on the side of privileging the freedom of the (public) artist, regardless of the aesthetic preferences of the public who will be exposed to their work. If it's that important to you, then you should consider becoming an artist too. And if it's not sufficiently important to you, then you are at the mercy of the people to whom it was sufficiently important.
it's a bit unclear where the defence of Eisenman starts
The most relevant section is everything between "McGowan and Engley" and "the Aristotelian idea of the virtuous mean".
All the more reason he should be brought back to defend himself!
Taking one of Hlynka's positions and using it as a synecdoche for "Hlynkaism" in toto is, indeed, an example of the very behavior I was criticizing, and for that I apologize. (In my defense, it was supposed to just be a cute moniker rather than an assertion of a serious philosophical claim.)
But it did seem to be one of his most critical recurring positions, it's the position that I've encountered most frequently in other conversations with posters here who claim to be carrying his mantle, and, crucially, it's the position that was outlined in the post I quoted from hydroacetylene. So that's what I wanted to respond to in my post. My post was only intended to respond to that position and not any of Hlynka's other positions.
But this isn't actually a good way of dividing up different ideologies. It's essentially a non sequitur. It's just something Hlynka latched onto because it seemed like a good way of putting all his enemies onto one side, while he got to stay on the other side.
It also just misrepresents the basic facts about what different groups believe, particularly in the DR. As HBD advocates, they believe in a relatively static human nature that cannot be reshaped by social institutions. Nor can their position be reduced to "white people inherently good, everyone else inherently bad"; they acknowledge that whites have a higher genetic disposition to violent crime than East Asians, for example, and that this would persist regardless of social arrangements.
I believe that I'm quite capable of considering all relevant alternatives, but please let me know if I'm missing something.
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