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There is no non trivial Western political movement today that isn't postmodern.
If post-NRX reactionaries are "woke right" then IDW Liberals are "woke center". To say nothing about how post-liberal libertarians are today. Nobody actually believes in metanarratives anymore, not even Joe Rogan tier normies. And insofar as they do their views are instantly dismantled. All that's left is a handful of classical fascists and orthodox marxists acting like the clock stopped in 1937.
Modernism has died God's death. It's over. It's been over. And those that refuse to see this like Lindsey are driven mad by it. But there is no journey back to our illusions, because material conditions have dispelled people of the idea that institutions can be neutral.
Foucault won. Popper lost. A very long time ago.
Now can we move on to actually addressing the issues we are facing, or must more ink be shed bringing Liberals kicking and screaming into the present they created? You have to grow out of the debate club and into actual politics someday. Or you can keep getting diligently thrown around by cultural communists and scheming reactionaries.
A, it’s not true, and B, even if, I’m not in the habit of surrendering my beliefs to the zeitgeist.
I think Trump II being so very unbounded in its trumpism has the potential to flush out a lot of postmodernist rot on both sides out of the west’s system. Step 1 : conscious sledgehammer to woke institutions. Step 2 : unintentionally fuck the rest up with post-truth populism. Step 3 : everyone’s back in the happy happy modernist center.
How about surrendering your beliefs to reality?
We ran the 90s liberalism experiment. It ended here. You blaming subversive elements is exactly the same as those old Marxists doing so in their time. It's as unconvincing and silly. If your order can't survive wreckers it loses the mandate of heaven.
You can stay a 90s liberal if you want, I even have some sympathy for that from my cold liberal point of view, but that's embracing the same sentiment as being a communist post 1991. Your ideology is a dead doctrine. Young people are not registering to go debate the virtues of free speech and constitutions, they have more pressing and severe concerns. Such as the constant violations of their natural rights.
I submit to you that what you really ought to care about is liberty, not liberalism. And that rolling with the punches of history is a lot more productive than stubbornly demanding that things never change. In fact a return to Hobbes and Bentham would suit your political family better than rehashing Mill.
Defend your postmodern beliefs directly, instead of appealing to their popularity.
How do you retvrn to hobbes and bentham if foucault’s right, exactly ?
Through the realities of violence my friend.
The world is a scary and angry place, a war of all against all, a disorder of wills, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
And yet in this chaos, we can have stability, as long as our small tight knit group is ready to sign an alliance. A simple pragmatic alliance that would have us regard each other as friends, and anyone else as enemies. And afford each other ancient rights.
This is no holy or moral arrangement, it is no sacred covenant or enlightened scientific government. It is simply an accord of convenience, which we may rescind if the night watchman becomes drunk on power. We can choose to have liberty because we like it, and for no other reason. And return to the ancient unthought prejudices and traditions of Englishmen, not because they are the universal destination of history or a logical necessity but because we simply desire them.
But what of this being undone of that same whim? That was always the case. Therefore, sharpen your sword, load your cannon and encrypt your hard drive.
That does not explain our different positions, iggy, old branch. When I denounce someone like putin, which you sort of support, as a corrupt murderer, my criticism does not rely on him breaking a ‘sacred covenant’. And when I call trump a liar, the truth he tramples on is not an illusion.
I wouldn't say I support Putin, my feelings towards him are of respect. I appreciate good statesmanship and I would like my people's corrupt murderer leaders (there exists no other kind of leader) to be half as good at corrupt murdering, because then my people would flourish instead of wallow in misery.
Alas, the Truth you worship is indeed the same kind of religious object that must die a God's death. Or at least a protestant reformation.
The careful study of prestigious institutions cannot reliably produce the truth insofar as it's output is connected to government. And claims that it can are just wishes to preserve an illusion that exists for power's sake. The New Atlantis is built on a lie.
The Cathedral holds no epistemological high ground on Donald J. Trump. They are both liars. Trump is just a more honest kind of liar. A sleazy car salesman instead of a diplomat.
I'd say I like the sleaze better but this is not true. In truth I have to be sympathetic to Trump, because unlike his opposition, he doesn't wish death and misery upon me in very direct ways. No Trumpist ever tried to close my bank account, to get me fired, imprisoned or to kill me. He chose to lend his hand in friendship when the respectable institutions have scorned me and my own to the death for decades. That owes some loyalty however you look at it.
You think the russian people are flourishing ? As bad as our elites possibly are, they have not sent us to die in some ditch for some retarded historical larp.
Our elites may not differ in kind, especially if you compare them to some ideal of incorruptible honesty and virtue, but they differ in degree. They may lie here and there, but trump lies more because he does not care at all about the truth. And Putin does not care at all if his people die.
I understand your frustrations with being insulted and stuff (although really, the worse offenders are your postmodern cousins. It’s not me and my people’s doing ; if anything, we were sorry to lose you), but one can always do way worse than government by liberal elites. Just look anywhere else.
I've seen Russia in the 90s. Pulling back from that abyss is worth a crown. You'd have to stack the bodies pretty high to compensate that upside, especially in a place like Russia.
I'm not condoning the senseless waste of human life, never have, since the first day, but as you know I blame Boris Johnson and what drove him for quite a bit of it.
Putin's far from having clean hands, but the blood splashes a ways further than you may like to admit
Power never cares about the truth. Denying that is one of the core conceits of liberalism: scientific government.
Keep denying this truth at your own risk.
I took great pains to exile myself to "anywhere else". The best countries in the world in my view are not Liberal except Switzerland.
My friend's boss has been jailed for standing up for free speech in that liberal world of yours and won't put a foot there anymore. And that's after escaping Russia.
I can do better than Liberal elites. I am enjoying better right now. Even on ideologically Liberal terms. Try to have a honest discussion of the heresies of biology in the West, see what happens to you. So much for the marketplace of ideas.
And that's to say nothing of the utter self betrayal that liberal economics has become. Bastiat has been rolling in his grave, and not because of some populist's tariffs.
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