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Okay. And progressives will use their cultural influence to shame you for not being one of them. You want to swing a dangerous weapon around. It will predictably be turned on you and me.
That seems like conflict theory done only halfway.
I'd say all weapons will be used by all sides that are capable of using them, with no respect for unilateral non-escalation. Progressives will shame conservatives regardless of conservatives refraining from attempting the same, because progressives are currently in a position to quote that piece of the Melian Dialogue: "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.".
Observing the proprieties while your enemies are biting and gouging is only a winning move if there is some powerful third party who values non-escalation.
You seem to be making the mistake that what's important is to win or lose. But as the cliche goes, what matters is how you play the game. I would much rather lose while upholding good moral behavior, than win by sacrificing morals.
Nietzsche asked:
If your morals lead you to be devoured by the monster, for no benefit to anyone except monsters, then what good are those morals?
To quote a long-eared muppet. "That is why you fail".
This is why leftism always devolves into purity-spirals and circular firing squads, this is why utopians are incapable of building anything other than mountains of skulls. The first step to building any lasting legacy is to care about something (usually a principle, but possibly an institution or other person) more than you care about yourself.
-Thomas B. Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome
That's funny you mention that quote, I just watched Oblivion yesterday with Tom Cruise and it was a plot point of the film. What are the chances. It's funny how two people can read the same writing and both think it supports their perspectives even though they are opposed.
But I don't think that quote lends support to the "be quietly devoured" side of Nietzsche's dilemma. Do you really think you are facing fearful odds for the ashes of your fathers with a milquetoast non-resistance to an opposition that is tearing down the temples of your gods? You really think "Democrats are the real racists" is you standing against fearful odds when it's the safest (non-)opposition that progressives allow you to have? You will be able to live peacefully with that opposition, that's true, because "Democrats are the real racists" is ultimately paying homage to their gods. You are still adopting their moral compass.
Horatius describing "Standing against fearful odds" obviously honors the bold and the brave opposition- in the context of ancestor worship for that matter, and not the personal salvation of one's own soul. The ancient Romans made mountains of skulls in honor of the ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods. And so did any great civilization.
Caring more about the salvation of one's own soul than fighting and winning against a monstrous opposition would be total lunacy to Horatius.
I also object to the implication I am a utopian. I am certainly not. I believe in the deep, inherent conflict of the political and don't believe there's one neat trick that solves it and saves everyone's soul. That's why I care about winning, and think it's a vice for people who should know better, but they stay within the walled garden of their feckless opposition while they make the conscious decision to gracefully lose.
It's not brave at all and it's certainly not the posture that Horatius is honoring in this writing.
What do you know of "resistance"? What makes you think mine is "milquetoast"?
I'm not the one here who's ensconced themselves in a progressive bubble only to go anonymously bitch about it on the internet while still parroting their leftist sociology professor's talking points. Nor am I the one trying to delude themselves into thinking that Kolmogorov Complicity is somehow not complicity.
I know what I am and where I stand, and that is in defense of the old ways against the nihilistic post-modernism that seems to have eaten academia and much of the mainstream media from within.
No, I think it is a statement of a simple historical fact. But we are also at a point where statements of historical fact can be a form of resistance. The opening to the US Declaration of Independance does not read "after careful examination of the available sociological data and best academic arguments we have concluded..." it reads "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." what you've never seemed to grasp throughout our interactions is that I don't just reject the woke democratic narrative, I reject the whole psuedo-Marxist framework upon which it is built. That is why I hold both the woke left and the alt right in contempt and why my first impulse in any conflict between the two is to root for casualties. Identity Politics Delenda Est.
As for Brave Horatius, I think that he and Franz Jagerstatter would find common ground in the belief that it is better to be killed by the enemy, and die with your chin up, than to compromise with sin.
Quaker-style? Do you believe it is better to be conquered than for your soldiers to kill enemy soldiers?
Define "conquered", because I feel that that might actually be one of the fundamental disconnects here.
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