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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   34050 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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Also, it doesn't really strike me as possible Kurvitz & co are actual communists; the game is way too nuanaced to be a product of true believer cogitation.

Does being a true believer mean you have to be a mindless follower of the existing dogma? I think the game makes it quite clear that ZA/UM consider communism a valid reaction to the injustices of existing socioeconomic systems. They don't blame people for wanting social justice and economic equality, but they don't know how to do this without spilling rivers of blood or ending up ruled by corrupt bureaucrats or oppressive dictators or remaining a useless discussion club. A heart vs mind conflict.

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I hope this caused you to update away from believing "people who disagree with me are all idiots, because they're obviously wrong" is a good heuristic.

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The impression I got from playing Disco Elysium was that they are some kind of post-Marxists, or disillusioned Marxists. They are still support the Marxist project, but they see Marxism more like the lesser evil than a grand utopian vision. It's a begrudging kind of support for Marxism.

I always felt that that Disco Elysium was went easiest on its criticism of Marxism of all the ideologies the game critiques and satirises - I thought this even before I knew the background of the developers. Much of the criticism of Marxism within the game itself isn't actually levelled at the philosophy of Marxism, but rather how Marxism is (in)effectively implemented. The union boss is less a critique of Marxist or socialist organising, but more about how self-serving people will abuse the idea of Marxism/socialism to enrich or empower themselves. It occasionally veers dangerously close to 'Marxism doesn't fail people, people fail Marxism' territory. Not to say it the game doesn't have any substantial critique of Marxism, but I definitely felt it was less substantive than some of the other critiques.

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Interestingly I'd say that personwise the ultraliberal characters are portrayed the best. Most communists tend to be violent dicks, but Joyce Messier is one of the objectively most positively portrayed characters in the game, and the guy who is so rich light bends around him is more comical than anything else.

I struggle to remember a third racist, maybe I didn't take note of him. Is the truck driver who says something like "welcome to Revachol" (and your partner takes offence to it) the first or the third in your list?

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What about the fascist petanque player?

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My read of Revacholian fascism is that it's not strictly similar to our world's fascism, more like nostalgia for late-stage dictatorial Revacholian monarchy combined with atavistic racism and sexism. Agreeing with René's points moves you along with the fascism path quite considerably.

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He's a monarchist, isn't he?

Also, it doesn't really strike me as possible Kurvitz & co are actual communists; the game is way too nuanaced to be a product of true believer cogitation.

"Communist" probably means anarchist here, mostly. The game makes it fairly obvious they aren't really that sympathetic towards old Soviet-style communism, figures as much.

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They have a portrait of Stalin hanging in their office and gave thanks to Marx and Engels during their VGA award acceptance speech. Maybe some part of it is ironic and/or they're like the portion of /pol/ who like to use Hitler and the swastika as edgy symbols despite not being neo-nazis themselves, but it's not as straightforward as just being anti-Soviet anarchists.

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Moralintern is basically EU. Crossed with NATO, but mostly EU. The conversation with the Moralintern bureaucrat who has a thing going on with the guy smoking in the balcony makes this very clear to anyone with even a passing familiarity with EU rhetoric. Moralism is basically equivalent to EU's functional guiding ideology, stripped of the federalist impulse: ever-present, continuous progress at a snail's pace, so slowly one might not even notice it at all times... but above all economic stability ("constant 2 % inflation rate" and so on).

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