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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36134 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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I think it can be taken seriously. Trump legitimately is crappy in a lot of those ways. It's just, well, SJ is also terrible in a lot of those ways.

Exalts the Nation and Often Race Above the Individual

This one is unforgivable for Devereaux in particular; as an SJ historian, he is opposed to "great-man history" i.e. emphasises what nations and populations do over what leaders do.

Severe Economic and Social Regimentation

The tax on unrealised capital gains is probably of similar magnitude to the tariffs. Social regimentation, um. He's an academic. Surely he can't have missed all the loyalty tests to SJ?

Forcible Suppression of Opposition

Note as well how the Italian fascists suppressed political opposition not through state action but through state inaction – by refusing to stop their squads of violent thugs who were intimidating and murdering opponents.

Trump has also recently begun threatening news outlets, declaring CBS’ decision to run Harris’ 60 Minutes interview “so bad they should lose their license, and they should take ’60 Minutes’ off the air.” Again, it may seem absurd but authoritarian leaders do take opposition media off the air. This isn’t new – in 2017 Trump as President said NBC’s license “must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.”

That is, of course, part of a broader strategy of threatening the media into silence, one that appears to be working.

So, um. The FBI threatened social media companies into implementing political censorship, and when one of them got bought by someone who refused to bow, Biden declared "Fair Game" on him and instituted a multi-agency conspiracy to damage all of his holdings in any way possible. And there was the fiasco with the Ministry of Truth Disinformation Governance Board. Also, exactly one candidate got shot during the 2024 election campaign, and I happen to personally know some people who openly wished the attempted assassin hadn't missed. Trump is bad on this front, but the bar is set very, very low here indeed.

The Cult of Tradition, particularly a syncretic traditionalism that latches on to various iterations of an idealized past, even mutually incompatible ones.

SJ loves this - it's just that the idealised past is specifically not the white one. It idolises pre-colonisation societies - all of them, including the ones busily trying to kill each other with copper arrows before white men came along. It's all about trying to right the mistake of colonisation and slavery.

The Rejection of Modernism, specifically, in Eco’s mind, a rejection of “the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason…seen as the beginning of modern depravity.”

Four words: "indigenous ways of knowing". Far more central case.

The Cult of Action for Action’s Sake, which for Eco is really a rejection of intellectualism, thinking or consideration, a despising of experts, intellectuals and universities: don’t think, just do, and hate the thinkers.

But equally it is J.D. Vance declaring that “the universities are the enemy.”

Not part of my overarching point, but I feel it's relevant to point out that Vance is a fan of Mencius Moldbug - he opposes the specific universities we have now, not the concept of intellectualism in general.

Disagreement is Treason

Hate speech codes and cancellations for SJ-heresy surely qualify. Also, Vance is an ex-Never-Trumper.

The Deceptively Strong/Weak Eternal Opponent

The patriarchy and white supremacy fit this much better than SJ does.

Life is Permanent Warfare

SJ lionisation of political activism and the rather-common demands that people engage in it fit this far better than Trumpian rhetoric. I'd actually say Trump isn't really guilty of this one.

Newspeak, which Eco identifies both in changing the meaning of words, often inverting them, but more broadly, I think Eco is getting at here what Orwell sums up in his famous line, “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Really? Really?

So that's what, half his points where it is exceedingly obvious that SJ's got serious problems and in many cases worse ones?

SJers liked to say in the past few US elections that "democracy is on the ballot". But what I found truly striking about this one is the degree to which (liberal*) democracy was literally not on the ballot. Pick an SJer authoritarian who wants to dismantle her opposition permanently, or an anti-SJer authoritarian who wants to dismantle at least part of his opposition permanently. Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!

*As opposed to totalitarianism. Devereaux cleverly avoided mentioning it but Hitler got like a 90% approval rating after he took control of the media; it's just that he also suspended elections so he technically didn't get voted for during that time. It's good and correct to not count that kind of manufactured consent - which SJ has been openly trying to produce for the last ten years.

I think you're largely correct about the points in question, which just helps to show why Eco's ur-fascism should not be used as a diagnostic guide. Eco was trying, in a roundabout way, to describe a kind of mentality or psychology that he experienced as connected to authoritarian politics. Anyone with enough verbal flexibility can connect a bunch of Eco's points to any movement they don't like, and then accuse it of being fascist.

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