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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   29778 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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Their backstories rhyme, but Yang is playing to Grey Tribe superegos. Ramaswamy is a next-gen populist, a Shift to Trump’s Puzzle.

My surprise at seeing a The Last Battle reference here (what fraction of the commenters are familiar enough with it to recognize the reference, I wonder?) was quickly accompanied by confusion at how the analogy is supposed to work. Puzzle is a mostly-unwitting tool of Shift all along, not an independent conman who is superseded by a better one...

what fraction of the commenters are familiar enough with it to recognize the reference, I wonder?

You'd be surprised! Some of us alternate between Lewis, Chesterton and Tolkien quotes on a regular basis 😁

I too am a member of this club. (Actually, although I quoted Lewis in my top level comment downthread, I'm not sure if I've actually quoted the others in my few Motte posts yet. It's only a matter of time, though.)

What struck me so strongly is that the reference was just dropped in with no explanation, as one might a Biblical or mythological allusion, or a reference to some other ubiquitous cultural touchstone. The implication that the readers would be expected to actually follow the reference absent a citation was... well, about the only place I'd be confident of that landing for most of the audience is in a Lewis society.

We're a higher class of annoying fighters on the Internet here! 😁

I'll be honest; I assumed they were name-dropping rappers.

TLB is a bit of a deep cut. But I actually think it is the best book in the whole series.

I’m glad anyone got it! Very much an imperfect analogy but it felt right somehow. /u/zeke5123 has the core of it — that Vivek will end up using Trump as a figurehead to advance his own ends and ambition. Maybe I’m overestimating Vivek and/or underestimating Trump, but for all his animal cunning, I still see some confused generous boomer in Donald, whereas Vivek is all 2nd gen migrant ambition and ruthlessness. There’s also the fact that Puzzle is vastly more virtuous than either of them, but as I say, it was mostly a vibes-based analogy.

I too had a similar reaction to the analogy. Puzzle wasn’t just a tool of shift, but was a good hearted Donkey concerned more about others than himself. That doesn’t describe Trump.

I guess maybe the thought is Trump will nominate Vivek as his VP and Vivek will bamboozle Trump into doing what Vivek wants?

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