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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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I'm convinced that there's a fair few people trusting (pro-)Russian sources that... well, probably have ideological reasons to do so, but also confuse the cynical and terse tone such sources often take as evidence of hidden wisdom and acumen, in comparison to the more enthusiastic and "Reddit" tone by Western pro-Ukrainian sources, even though both are just often shooting in the dark based on wishful thinking and bias.

Just saw a Substack post saying much the same.

In the coming months and years, we will likely see the one turn into the other: Red becoming Browns, Browns turning Red, Christian becoming atheists, atheists becoming Christian, “new systems” declaring the essential compatibility of Orthodoxy and communism, of international socialism and national chauvinism, politics shrugged off and then adopted as any other affectation, like health fads or sudden tastes for the exotic Orient, but having the added benefit of granting the appearance of serious conviction and purpose. Here we get an insight into the unifying principle of all these supposedly disparate tendencies: a type of base, moronic cynicism. More than anything else, it is this moronic cynicism that takes itself to be devilish cleverness that is the governing ideology of the Russian state and society, and it attracts all its global admirers.

The cynical pose, which flatters itself on being always undeceived, is in practice highly gullible and distinguishable from naivety only in the sour churlishness of its affect. These attitudes should be expected in the nether regions of the press and intelligentsia, where people make their livings writing semi-pornographic conspiracy literature and closely identify with the mob. But these stances have infected the broader intellectual climate as well. The whole pamphlet literature of the demi-monde provides a new language that sounds provocative and fresh compared to the stale banalities of bien-pensant humanitarian liberalism. It is tempting material for those who treat both life and politics as an irresponsible flight from one pose to another.

Ganz is an obnoxious guy. Zero charity, zero intellectual honesty, pure attack dog trained to never back down, and an instinctive, zoological elitist to boot (but cowardly when it comes to offending even the least of his fellow travelers: «uh I won't discuss Strauss, let's focus on Schmitt»... «eh, Dugina was probably killed by Putin, whatevs»). He tries to present his «bien-pensant humanitarian liberalism» or, rather, uncritical hegemonic cheerleading with an attempt to smuggle in some less discredited Marxist ideas through the cracks as mature wisdom born out of true morality; all dissenters are mercilessly deconstructed as poseurs and in the end, just fascists (he really, really likes the word). It's the first trick in any aspiring leftie essayist's book, he's just a bit more well-read in unorthodox (for them) lit than most.

That said: he's largely right about Russia Stans who consume shadows and figments of internal Russian propaganda. I've gotten in many arguments with them, and probably lost like 40% of my fake internet points inflow on themotte for disavowing the war that's ruining my country (or so it feels). They're ridiculous. But it's still easy to see where they're coming from.

This vicarious proxy war has highlighted just how much some people, just like in the 20th century but for other reasons, feel alienated by the Western liberal order in the West itself, unrepresented by its insitutions, and bitter about its poisonous nuances that exploited their good faith (like «anti-racism»...) Classical liberals of yesteryear; many reactionary outcasts like ethnic nationalists disaffected with erosion of their polities and happy indifference of the ruling class with regards to disintegrating families and collapsing birth rates; religious folks who take their faith to be something more than voluntary psychotherapy; and people like me, who want there to be an escape hatch. So there's a demand for some alternative – one backed with teeth and self-interest of players who have a more reliable stake than ideological commitment. Thus, China and Russia and Iran and Third Worldism, geopolitics and realpolitik, and cheerful shallow cynicism of being Against The Current Thing, chugging imported Eurasian sneer by the barrel like so much sour crude oil.

But of course this is the same reason for his own comrades to naysay Capitalism for centuries, and for him to casually fling shit at Elon Musk's endeavors. Like a much smarter socialist Cosma Shalizi has said:

That planning is not a viable alternative to capitalism (as opposed to a tool within it) should disturb even capitalism’s most ardent partisans. It means that their system faces no competition, nor even any plausible threat of competition. Those partisans themselves should be able to say what will happen then: the masters of the system, will be tempted, and more than tempted, to claim more and more of what it produces as monopoly rents. This does not end happily.

As in economy, so in ideology, so in everything: in the absence of challenge, monopolists optimize for their own convenience and rent extraction, and signs of decay are swept under the rug – until your science becomes a cargo cult, your enlightened humanism amounts to a fight for spoils and your dissenters begin rooting for foreign imperialistic empires because they want more democracy and can't get it at home.

Can a dog comprehend this terror of staring at hegemony in the general case, as a bad end? Or just whine when he's getting kicked by an unpleasant master, and cuddle to one who smells nice?

Ironically I can't see what he has written on literal Gramscian hegemony because he's hidden it behind a paywall. But it's probably nothing surprising.

I would like to know more.

Do you have a link to that substack?

Isn't the link showing? It's in the post.