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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3200 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 16, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm still on Kendi's How to be an Antiracist. So far, mixed feelings. I have found his attempt to dissolve assumptions of racial difference very humanizing, and of practical merit. On the other hand, while he sounds perfectly innocent when discussing race with other minorities, when prodded far enough it always seems to come back to "whiteness" in the end. In fairness, Kendi's take on white individuals is fairly nuanced.

Paper I'm reading: Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Finally went through BAM, very straussian, but a real core there underneath the baby talk and performative offensiveness. Probably doesn't speak much to the average, but I wonder what Kulak thinks of the exhortation for men to form piratical bands of mercenaries, biker gangs etc. Prince and Prigozhin would seem to be the models, and the recent abortive coup in Russia would seem to provide support for the BAP-ian worldview.

Interested in his footsie with christianity, how he squares that particular circle, because it's a glaring problem with his philosophy.

Out of curiosity, how does the microcoup support it? I understand how a Bronze Age mindset would lead to more such coups. But…that feels like a good reason to avoid such a mindset. Prigozhin is likely to spend the rest of his life thinking about polonium.

I meant more that the rise of partially independent private armies with even the capability to march on their own capital indicates that history is trending the way BAP predicts.

Prince is in no condition to march on Washington, for comparison.

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