ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
There Is Always Hope
User ID: 812
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
I realise I'm a little late to the party, but I want to talk about Tolkien and RoP.
One of the themes of Lord of the Rings is the idea that the smallest, the humblest person can change the destiny of the world, and become a hero. The Hobbits represent small, humble, ordinary people. They don’t lust for power or fame, or aspire to do great deeds. Thus the Ring can’t corrupt them in the way that it would corrupt Boromir or Galadriel, although it can make them covet it as a possession. We see this when Sam willingly gives it back to Frodo, even though we have seen others kill for it having been exposed to it for far shorter periods. Bilbo manages to give it up, after having owned it and been subjected to its influence for 60 years, and Frodo manages to bear it right into the heart of Mt Doom, with the Ring fighting him all the way.
The Ring works by tempting its owners, offering them ways to get what they desire most. The Wizards want to make the world a better place. The Elves want to stop the decay of the world. Men desire power and the ability to defeat their enemies. Dwarves desire treasure. All of them want something they don’t already have, therefore the Ring has something to work with, something to offer them. While Hobbits are content creatures: “But where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet and good tilled earth. For all Hobbits share a love of all things that grow. And yes, no doubt to others, our ways seem quaint. But today of all days, it is brought home to me it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.”
Galadriel was never some paladin of light. She is the ultimate redemption arc. Someone who had many of the same flaws as Sauron, but who came back. Sauron had a chance for redemption, but couldn't follow through due to his pride. Like Galadriel he was told to come back to Valinor. He didn't want to leave his powerbase or his pride behind however. The character who some consider to be the ultimate hero of the tale, who gets the last scene is not Aragorn the King or an immortal elf. It's the family man with scars, who lost his friend, and who comes home to his family and does the best he can.
It seems Amazon Studios never bothered to understand when they decided they'll make Galadriel a sort of "girlboss" claiming to save the world but with the writers' focus being on her path to glory like most woke cape blockbusters these days. Given how literarily significant Tolkien is world over, its so bizarre that they'd try to pick apart his legacy and crap all over him. Within my reading circle in India, LOTR is a favourite. The supposed racism doesn't even register. The last RoP trailer in regional languages here also got ratio'd on YouTube. I don't know what Amazon was thinking. They said this is the most expensive show ever and that the future of the studio itself relies on its success, and yet they decide to check the woke quotas instead of giving Tolkien fans what they want. Did they really just not expect this level of blowback? Its so unfathomable to me that the answer is that simple, could it be something else?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
I'm curious, are there any plans to expand this website to mobile apps in the future, once this site settles in?
Isn't this still limited to one industry though? I don't think we'll see such waning anytime soon in entertainment media until at least we see the tentpole IPs recede in popularity. I was hoping that pressures arising from competition to Russia and China would've helped accelerate the reversal, but I'm far less optimistic now.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Its also worth noting that Galadriel was married to Celeborn in the First Age and their daughter Celebrian was born early in the Second Age, but looks like both of them have been retconned from the show. It may be one thing that the Elvish society has evolved beyond human borders of intimacy, and become far more comfortable expressing closeness in a platonic way, but the show doesn't sufficiently establish exactly what kind of relationship Elrond and Galadriel share, its just coming off like he's making googly eyes at her. They might as well be completely different characters then, given that Elrond is married to Celebrian in canon. So what then, Arwen and the Twins are "written out" too?
I don't fully understand the Israel conundrum.
The ideological stake over the issue hasn't been divided merely between the left and right, but within each aisle too. In recent years, it seems as though liberals have fallen out of love with them and many of them believe that (on principle) Israel shouldn't exist. While others believe in the two state solution. The mainstream media has been louder about the IDF's excesses in occupied territories (like this one, a cursory search). Tankies over at GrayZone and related websites are convinced that western mainstream media is still defending Israel. I don't get this position, are they arguing that western media isn't criticising Israel enough or that the media is silent altogether? The right seems to be divided too, many of them enthusiastically support them while others don't like that billions of dollars of taxpayer money is sent to Israel every year and they're convinced that their lobby in the US is most supportive of liberalism and progressivism and the war machine.
My questions are what drove the evolution of these views into what they are, exactly how influential is the Israel lobby in the US, why do tankies believe that Israel doesn't get criticised in the media, are the liberals starting to decouple from Israel, are there any other reasons besides the treatment of Palestinians that the Israel question takes up so much oxygen in the foreign policy room?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
I'm flirting with a rather incendiary view.
Over the COVID era and the recent excessive developments in the LGBT movement, I've been looking into radical feminist worldview where my gripes with a lot of society overlaps with some of theirs. At least, a section of theirs. I can't help but think that they are at least partially correct in their analysis of gender dynamics, regardless of the solutions they purport. I also agree with them that men are by default degenerates that need tons of rigorous external tempering to get right. And that access to porn is a bad idea, I've personally seen what crippling porn addiction can do to a man. Now I don't buy into the rest of the grift attempting to promote what they regard as feminine features in men, and indeed such attempts at social engineering can be pretty disastrous. I watched this video last night about what it means to be a man in a sedentary, urbanite lifestyle that doesn't really key into our more primal instincts like before, say, the Second World War. A lot of cult classics like Fight Club and Taxi Driver had already impended signs of a male crisis. Combine with this the growing wealth inequality. The consumption of various media that bring to life our escapist fantasies across all genres like high fantasy or superheroes or science fiction or even highly romanticised high school dramas, actually serves to remind them exactly how mundane our life really is. Going forward, I think it'll only get worse as it festers with no easy solutions. Worse still, we're pursuing the wrong solutions by regurgitating the myth that all behaviour is socialised and not evolutionary, that we could get men to "unlearn" masculinity and "learn" femininity. In the end, such attempts will not only push the rejects over the edge, it might also risk creating more rejects. In many ways, I see Tyler Durdan as the "proto-red pill" media in how the persona gives the rejects what they desire and giving them an opportunity to pursue hightened competition in dominating in actual fights. The more woke the culture gets, and the more progressives freak out over the "red pill media" gaining traction and blame it as the source of "male entitlement" rather than a symptom of something a bit more complicated, the more these rejects' perception of society will overlap with the red pill crowd's. I realise the second part of my comment seems completely contradictory to what I'd said in the beginning, but what I'm trying to say is that radfems are correct in their analysis that the "degenerate phase" is the default phase of men and it requires significant external pressures to correct. Part of the problem could be that young boys being coddled might potentially give way to the mentality that life is a template where a series of events fall into place like they're a given like so: school -> girlfriend -> college -> job -> success. But if the habit of actively working towards your every goal isn't imbibed into you since a very young age, once reality confronts you, you become a doomer and just give up like you could do nothing about it. Like you were just born in the wrong household/class/society/whatever. I don't think the mainstream media is ever going to address this head on without being bogged down by what goes within the overton window of the culture war.
I know its a rather chaotic hodge podge stream of thoughts, but I hope I made sense in getting my point across.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
What I meant is, for the men who do want to participate in the rat race, it creates an unrealistic perception of the experience that can be difficult to decouple from. Combined with concerns over performance anxiety, not a good outcome.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Thanks for your reply, I've saved it for future reference!
This part especially hits true:
All in all, what I see is guys 'discovering' and embracing masculinity beyond just the superficial brand that Redpill/manosphere types tend to shill. Its not just an image they're projecting, it is a complete renovation of the self. And all it took was learning to deliver an efficient and effective beatdown.
Which underscores the biggest problem with the redpill grift, its not so much about offering its followers a solution to their problems as it is about making them feel good about having them.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
A lie repeated over and over becomes truth, that adage is self evident too, given that there is no evidence that Goebbels actually said anything of the sort. This my favourite rebuttal of this myth. An excerpt to add on to what you've described in the 2nd paragraph:
Furthermore, if rape or sexual harassment were indeed motivated by the desire to feel powerful, then one would expect them to be less common among those who already feel powerful, and that they would more often go against the power gradient rather than along it; that is to say, raping or sexually harassing someone more powerful would have greater appeal than sexually abusing someone less powerful.
There's something similar on stalking as well, its often not due to any consciously learnt behaviour as it is an act of impulse and primal instinct.
I think that while most(?) people do take this as fact, despite the efforts to "unlearn" the supposed entitlement have yielded no tangible results, a part of the effort is to regurgitate this trope that "men in power" is always a bad thing, even dangerous and predatory towards women.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
What would a China-led world order look like, in cultural terms?
Its a hypothetical, so let's set aside the probability of such a future for the moment.
Part of what made the US so uniquely influential over the world was that its primary language is widely spoken across the world. And American books and movies feature events and histories from across the world. These two factors have allowed the US to transmit its culture and values far and wide. Americanism is now the de facto culture of the Western web, and it has shaped the cultures of countries as diverse as India, Australia, Israel, the UK, Philippines, etc. Hollywood, comics, animations even back in the rubber hose and classical Disney era, were very popular globally.
But right now, Chinese culture is largely closed off from the outside world. Chinese books and movies are mainly about China. Furthermore, few people outside of China speak Chinese. However, this might not necessarily be a barrier for China to project its cultural capital. Hong Kong films have been very popular outside China too. Kung Fu icons like Bruce Lee left a lasting impact on Hollywood. While this seems to have retreated as a trend in recent years, the mainland Chinese developer Game Science Interactive seems to be intent on marketing Black Myth Wukong to the global audience. And of course, there's Japanese anime and video games, Kpop and Kdrama that have penetrated into the western market despite lingual barriers. Films coming out of mainland China are targeted at the Chinese audience, so they'll likely maintain some form of insularity? The Battle at Lake Changjin and its sequel were extremely successful, easily held up by their massive domestic market. I think HK films will also increasingly rely on the Chinese market as the Kung Fu magic isn't quite working anymore.
Furthermore, if China does compete in cultural hegemony, would the US finally be forced to roll back on its own excesses re wokeism? Or would China continue to be inward looking and be content with its economic weight, and the US would remain the cultural hegemon?
The split became very visible around 2019, when Labour brought up the issue of Kashmir following the removal of its partial autonomy and the lockdownds. I know a few anti-BJP Brit Indians who also got pissed off and voted Tory after that.
This spectator article presents an analysis similar to yours.
Also another anecdote, I've known a few pro-BJP Indians in the UK and US becoming sympathetic to white nationalists. I think this reflects on your earlier point that community relations are only good between Indians and whites, Indians and Muslim South Asian groups at times would rather not interact. The point about the wealth imbalance is on point, what's also interesting though is that Indian refugees from Uganda also seemed to have moved up the ladder since Amin's purge.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Ah right, yeah I confused the two.
I also found this about Sikh-Muslim clashes in the 80s. As noted in the thread, this was during the height of the Khalistan movement in Indian Punjab. There's a lot of political baggage in the subcontinent, not always easy to shake away. Nevertheless, since the Indian middle class felt absolutely fucked from above and below back in India (where they're both taxed heavily, deal with Malthusian growth rates and there's pressure from below which doesn't sufficiently distinguish between the rich class and middle class in its grievances concerning exploitation), they were more keen to shed their identities once they immigrate. This is largely true in the US but I think political competition with Brit Pakistanis kept it alive in the UK.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Besides the partition riots, there was also the 1971 genocide which came back to spotlight among Hindu Nationalists following the Russian invasion. They turned Russophilic all of a sudden.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Would this, in your opinion, mainstream the Third Position on the right? I see many (most?) American right wingers still arguing that socialism has infiltrated their institutions to birth much of the social ideologies that dominate the western zeitgeist today. Maybe Europe will take the "red pill" sooner?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Yeah, by "red pill" I meant if the European right will become less committed to upholding capitalism. I agree with your 2nd paragraph too, I once spoke to a paleocon from Minnesota years ago and he'd propounded the view that the alt right movement is largely Jacobin in its visioned role of the state. Which may be true, but yes, they probably don't care what political or economic system they need to employ in shaping their socio-cultural agenda. I just don't know what kind of comeback the right would do in the US, nearly all big businesses generate a lot of social capital by espousing liberal values which show no sign of going out of fashion anytime soon. Perhaps they'll just wait until the free markets "correct themselves"?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Berkley Law School's Jewish free zones is causing some stir. The student group also wants to ban Zionist speakers. I wonder how this will sit with progressive Jews, who themselves are quite often found heading pro-Palestine activism in the US. Now these bans are trotted out by progressives, not alt-righters. Accusations of anti-semitism likely won't find any purchase in the vogue that's disillusioned with Israel. And I'm not seeing any sign of American Jews tilting rightward anytime soon.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
while receiving only the poorest and less fit of the people of the third world.
Yup... "model immigrants" are classed as "white adjacent" in this so called oppression hierarchy. We will have to see if the US becomes less attractive as an immigration zone in the future.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
On the flip side, a lot of leftists will claim "Oh, you're just labeling any disagreement with Israel as antisemitism" when a lot of opposition to Israel (especially on the left) is in fact motivated by antisemitism.
I haven't noticed this, though. Maybe its a rather thin line while discussing certain aspects of Israeli lobbying efforts that sometimes do overlap with conventional antisemitic tropes trotted out by the alt right. But motivations are difficult to 'prove' when someone doesn't publicly espouse them. Are there any examples of this in leftist pundits though?
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
I'm curious what folks here think about tankies.
I remember seeing a twitter thread during the onset of the Ukraine war explaining why Russia and China growing powerful even to the point of imperialism is vital to combat western imperialism, "someone has to do it". Whether one agrees that Russia has been constantly provoked by NATO or not, its difficult to spin Russian actions as "anti-imperialist". Similarly, China's land and water disputes with its neighbours. It appears both these countries have become a sort of canvas to project their ideologies. They often call western conservatives "far right" and often attack their criticisms of feminism. But how do they explain China's own censorship of feminist activism, the fact that independent labour unions are illegal, the push for pro-natalism, the push for masculinity training, etc.? I've seen many articles countering the stories about Uyghurs, but not much on the above. What really makes the "tankie ideology" attractive? I can fully understand and even sympathise with their gripes over western imperialism and even Israel to an extent, but I don't get the narratives that its all the neoliberals and the "far right" against China, essentially projecting the whole issue as a new cold war of ideologies between neoliberalism and communism.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
What's also noteworthy is that a huge section of the "far right" actually idolises Russia and China for the reasons I'd described above: they see the west as a decadent civilisation spreading wokeism worldwide, while those two are "strong, confident societies" resisting it and that their hegemony would end progressivism altogether.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Yeah, looks like every political tribe has some level of "intersectionality" mentality hoping that the "smart outsiders" would support them.
ZeStriderOfDunedain
Ze Strider
1yr ago
Well, the Grayzone folk are still very sympathetic to Russia. Right wing culture warriors supporting Putin doesn't surprise me. As you said, they see the cultural establishment in the west as stridently opposed to them and their values, which they see closer to the vogue of Russian society, so they seek any disturbance to the status quo at home even if it may come from abroad. This isn't to say that I agree with them, just that I can at least rationalise their attitudes. As someone else had stated below, its not that I dislike left wing tankies, I'm just trying to understand their worldviews in their own ideological domain. China is hardly communist anymore, and sure we can go by the CCP's rhetoric that only "compassionate reeducation" is happening in Xinjiang for the sake of argument, but things like the crackdown on progressivism and "feminisation" of men are policies that the Chinese government (and western right wingers) openly and unapologetically espouses. What would a left wing tankie that laughs off Jordan Peterson's lectures (that is, the ideas of one pundit) on the crisis of masculinity say about China's own state guided programs to promote masculinity?
We see litters of articles and papers from liberal media that democracy is globally dying. While I don't believe this is happening right away, could most democracies become less so in the future?
The German YouTuber Kraut some time ago had suggested that the political turmoil in liberal democracies is largely a result of the collapse of the USSR and with it, the Cold War consensus of combatting communism which unified various different groups.
I don't think American liberals are particularly holding up democratic principles in their own domain either, with how they deplatform and censor their opponents. Essentially, they're really just consolidating their electoral power while trying to protect the thin sheen of freedom in America. This bias extends across the US establishment. If you look at the highest-earning zipcodes they've all flipped massively to the democrats over the past few decades. Same is true if you look at the Ivy League. Seen in this light, the FBI was merely following the trend when they raided Ryan Kelley's home and other such harassment campaigns will not face scrutiny because a large portion of the US elite agree with the FBI targeting their political opponents. This is why they refuse to let Jan 6 die, it was certainly a riot, but nowhere close to a coup. We know what a real coup looks like from the recent Sri Lankan crisis. In South Korea, gender wars and the excessive divide over feminism has effectively become a major electoral talking point, although President Yoon Suk-yeol is married to a career woman himself who doesn't wish to be addressed as First Lady and has 0 kids with him. The state of the Koreas, one being a depressing totalitarian state and the other being a depressing, hyper consumerist protectorate of the US almost feels like an ill fated destiny. Even in India, the progressive pressure has generated a lot of culture wars of its own, where the ruling BJP's base perceive liberals as being sympathetic to Pakistan while levelling every epithet against India which would also be relevant to their archrival, and have reacted strongly. Couple with that the malthusian growth rates and the neoliberal decay preceding their rise to electoral power from being just another one of many parties in the country. But Russia and China, the "authoritarian competitors to the free world", are both strong societies, I can't imagine something like 1CP being done away so quickly if it was instituted in the US. They don't have to deal with electoral politics and do not have to deal with culture wars. And with an ascendant China, its proximity to China might tempt India to remodify its political institutions to have a shot at uplifting its hundreds of millions from poverty.
Now I'm not saying culture wars will end democracies, but its probably a symptom of decadence in democratic societies combined with the rise of social media highlighting our differences with millions of our own countrymen. Maybe I'm young and only speaking from my own limited experience? Curious to know what others think.
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