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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.
@hydroacetylene said:
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.
Sorry, I mostly missed this conversation, so I have nothing to add beyond what FC, and Dean already said, I just want to say that:
Good. I've been mumbling about the utter failure of the Rationalist movement for a while, and as the others I'm pretty sure it extends to the entirety of the Enlightenment, including it's right-wing parts. Between @FCfromSSC's heroic efforts, @hydroacetylene, @Dean, and @ControlsFreak doing their part, it only warms my hear that more and more people are picking up the mantle of Hlynkaism, and that it's getting big enough to concern you.
My brother in $deity:
You believe that the Rationalist movement is an "utter failure", when it has spawned the corporations busy making God out of silicon. Even if they fail at their ultimate goal, they've proven you can get staggering intelligence out of stirring text into a pot and applying heaps of linear algebra to it. The modern Rat movement was talking about this well before you could get a neural net to reliably classify a dog or a cat. Half the founders of the major labs went at their work with the ado and gumption of wanting to ensure that what many considered the nigh-inevitable ascension of the Machine God came out favorably. Some might argue, including many Rationalists (Yudkowsky, for example) that they're bringing about the doom they seek to avert. I remain on the fence, the sharp pointy bits poking my ass.
It is beyond my ability to convince you to take this claim seriously, but as Yudkowsky said, there's no argument that can convince a rock. You'll see, and so will I, as this pans out.
It's impossible for me to express the true extent of my disdain for Hlynkaism, as practised by Hlynka, without violating the rules of this forum. Suffice it to say that if anyone found anything useful, from my perspective they achieved a borderline-heroic feat in finding utility from his rambling, often incoherent screeds. Every time he won an AAQC, I found myself scratching my head.
I will grant that my very low opinion on the matter is colored by my distaste for that gentleman, who I found obtuse and pugnacious on a good day. Racist and confused on his bad ones.
At any rate, he achieved the rather remarkable feat of getting his own friends on the mod team sufficiently fed up with his antics to perma-ban him. That's impressive, and I doff my cap at him, while rejoicing in the subsequent reduction in my average blood pressure when using this site.
I'm not seeing the connection here. How did the rationalist movement spawn any of that? They're just garden variety tech industry dudes as far as I am aware.
https://www.themotte.org/post/1812/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/313915?context=8#context
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