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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32819 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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The enemy must be both strong and weak, huh?

Or I guess the modern version is that they’re “so controversial, yet so brave.”

The enemy must be both strong and weak, huh?

This phrase seems to function as a thought-terminating cliché.

All enemies have both strengths and weaknesses, relatively speaking, and it behooves one to have a full appreciation of both if conflict seems likely. There is no assessment of relative strengths and weaknesses, in any context, on any side, that you cannot apply your criticism to. It is fully general, hence either useless or dishonest due to selective application.

Is there not a tension between portraying leftists as conventional and as dangerous radicals? Their hold on the mainstream must be treated as a serious threat—but also “just a meme.”

Is there not a tension between portraying leftists as conventional and as dangerous radicals?

"Convention" as in "Consensus", "Law", "Guideline", "Policy", not "Tradition". You might argue that this is imprecision in language, but language is, unfortunately, imprecise. Note the "Currently", which states that this is a convention of the present. So no, this doesn't seem to me to be a colorable argument.

Their hold on the mainstream must be treated as a serious threat—but also “just a meme.”

Rwandan racial grievances and the Blood Libel are other examples of mere memes that are nevertheless serious threats, and other examples (Marxism, Protestantism, Christianity, "this random guy is actually the legitimate heir to the throne", &etc) abound. Ideas are dangerous, in the strictest and most concrete sense. Memes motivate, and of the means-motive-opportunity trio, motive is the most important.

I'm aware that the cliché in question has a pedigree, but I'm struggling to actually think of a single case where its use is straightforwardly both applicable and productive. I think this is just another of those academic "insights" sustained by a complete lack of rigor in their native environment.

No, they are just strong. They leverage minority groups for their own gain, and then discard them when they are no longer considered weak enough to garner enough sympathy to provide cover for their power grabs. I don't consider left wingers my enemy though, the vast majority of the left are just trying to do the right thing, and we disagree about the methods but not the goal - a happy, stable, free society. I do consider them co-opted by tyrants and sociopaths however, who I do consider my enemy, and I think that the current ideology dominating the left is partly to blame, because it makes it easier for those types to get ahead.

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