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I retired permanently from performing several years ago. Most of my IRL friends are still people whom I met while in that sphere, because I can’t just magically recreate an entire social network in my thirties. I have complained many times about how it’s easy for right-wingers who grew up in conservative areas, or who were never closely affiliated with any left-wing people or communities, to say, “Just move to a red state, join a church, get new friends, etc.” as if ripping up your entire life and starting over is just a super simple thing for people to do. I’ve burnt a considerable number of bridges by even revealing a fraction of my true beliefs, and I would almost certainly lose what’s left of my friends and my side job if I were outed.
You have a poor mental model of me. It is very true that I like a lot of things about living among college-educated people with artsy-fartsy tastes; I’ve commented before about how when I attend classical music concerts, I’m acutely aware that the vast majority of the people in the audience with me are not remotely conservative, and that this is not an accident. Progressivism correlates highly with having good taste in music, in film, in literature, etc. That correlation is only partially causative; a lot of it is simply that intelligent and educated people are socialized into progressive values by the sense-making institutions they gravitate toward, as is the case with me, but part of it is also that psychological traits such as openness to experience are related to leftist instincts. I also unapologetically love the urban lifestyle, and for a number of reasons that also correlated with progressivism. It’s not the progressivism that is the appealing part. I’ve said many times that my overriding goal is to figure out how to do my small part toward facilitating a reconciliation of white left-wingers and white right-wingers. Both have an integral part to play in the future of our civilization.
I’ve been severely behind on my effort-posting due to some professional and social obligations as of late, but I had a big effort-post planned about how a recent orchestra performance I attended, which featured a very racially diverse group of young performers, represents the sort of “best-case scenario” of multiracial elitism, as opposed to multiracial populism. I hope to write more about this dynamic in the future. I have numerous non-white friends and colleagues, and my racial views cannot possibly be summarized as simply “not liking the things non-white people bring.”
Again, not remotely true, and I’ve explicitly said otherwise. You’re correct that I have not laid out a comprehensive genealogy of “wokeness” because I myself am still working out exactly what I think the most useful and accurate model/explanation is. Certainly the Enlightenment is a factor, but there are lots of other ideological strains that contributed - transcendentalism, unitarian utopianism, even ancient religious traditions like gnosticism play a part. It’s a very complicated story, and in no sense whatsoever do I give non-whites any prominent part to play in it, at least not until up until the 50’s, or a bit earlier if you frame Jews as non-white. Again, you’ve assumed a ton about my worldview that is not supported by my actual statements.
I don't think I do have a poor mental model of you.
Yes, I understand it's not the progressivism per se that is the appealing part. But for all the reasons you mentioned, the things you like are basically "white progressive culture." You don't like that it's progressive. I kind of sympathize with your dilemma (not a lot), but I think you are pointing in the wrong direction by insisting it's not white progressives responsible for the things you don't like.
My entire point is that none of those things used to be the exclusive province of progressives. Classical music was a very right-wing tradition for a long time. Ditto for literature. We find ourselves in a very odd and atypical moment in history, in which the vast majority of smart and high-human-capital people are left-wing. There’s no reason this needs to be the case now, it hasn’t been the case for very long, and my contention is that it will not continue to be the case for very much longer.
Abandoning the cities, deriding high culture as faggy elitist status-signaling (as a number of conservatives on this very site have done) and going all-in on rural populism is a toxic dead end for the right wing, and I would rather actually try and rescue those parts of our culture - the BEST parts of our culture - from the mind virus of minoritarian identity communism. Being a white identitarian is inextricably tied up with this; I believe that white people are largely doing this to ourselves, and that all we need to do is stop. However, if we don’t stop very soon, things genuinely will be out of our hands and those who hate us truly will have the whip hand. Right now, white progressives are allowing vindictive race communists, like the individuals I mentioned in my original comment, because they’ve forgotten what made white people great, and forgotten that they have the strength to fight back.
It’s like if a huge jacked guy was allowing himself to be bullied by a scrawny manlet, simply because he had some psychological condition that caused him to forget that he has muscles. Some perceptual blindness that causes him to ignore the evidence of his own strength right before his eyes. He could snap out of it in a second and flatten the bully, but something is stopping him from doing so. And there are people like me standing off to the side yelling, “Bro, you’re fucking massive, just pummel this guy!” And he’s like, “Nah man, I’m puny and weak, and plus, even if I was super strong, it would be morally wrong of me to fight back.” That’s essentially how I see racial dynamics in this country, at least as it concerns whites and blacks.
I'm bemused that you just wrote a long screed saying at greater length what I said above - which you claimed was wrong.
Let me clarify. White progressives are allowing themselves to be dominated and led off a cliff by non-white race communists. This is not at all the same as saying that white progressives are “in charge”. What I’m saying is that that people actually driving the dynamics of cancellation and of the enforcement of woke values within woke spaces are not primarily white, even if those spaces are numerically mostly white. The white individuals who are contributing actively to the weaponized parts of wokeness very often have something else wrong with them - they’re trans, or they’re extremely mentally ill (but I repeat myself), etc. Whereas the high-level non-white leftists are usually much more well-adjusted, clear-eyed, cynical operators who merely recognize the opportunity to win power for their own group at the expense of the group that had power before.
This comment was reported, and I have to agree that this sort of glibness isn't appropriate here. You are allowed to argue that trans people are mentally ill, but it has to actually be some kind of an argument, don't just throw low effort boos like that.
(I was reluctant to mod this one because you are responding to me, but this comment isn't actually a response to anything I said, which makes it even more of a gratuitous dunk on your outgroup.)
Lol, reluctant. As if it isn't plainly obvious what your goal is here - a grand display of your power. "Ha ha ha" you say, "every single comment in this chain by both of us was reported multiple times, but I will enforce this one on you because I can, because this exchange didn't end with you slinking away defeated and I will not accept that result."
PS my mental model of you is flawless.
I'm going to indulge you for a moment because why not.
Yes. For exactly the reasons I stated, and I also because I do not disagree with the object-level claim, yet the rules here clearly require you to actually support negative generalizations about a group, not just flippantly toss them into a one-line boo light. And also because the person who reported Hoff was being petty (many, many reports are basically a handful of people vindictively reporting either people or arguments they don't like), but in this case, they did have a point.
Dude, if I wanted to grandly display my power, I would be using it a lot more than I do. For example, when you jump on me in a discussion you weren't involved in with a load of personal attacks just because you've got beef, you are pretty clearly testing me to see if I will wield my "power." You would probably love it if I modhatted you (as I almost certainly would if you were crawling up someone else's ass like this). You'd make for a very dramatic victim of the system, I'm sure. Yet I enforce the rules as impartially as I can, even when confronted by belligerent pests trying to get a rise out of me, as seems to have become your idle hobby.
This is absolute nonsense. Even @Hoffmeister25 agreed his comment was bad.
"Every comment in this chain" was not reported. A few were (I don't think any of them received multiple reports), and most of the reports were spurious. (The vast majority of the reports we get are dismissed without action.) In many previous exchanges with Hoff, I've let the matter drop after we've both had our say - often with him having the last word - so your claims are flatly and objectively untrue.
I'm sure you think so. Yet the objective and observable evidence says otherwise. Carry on, my dude.
I did to you what you did to hoffmeister. I used your words to develop an uncharitable model of you based on incomplete information (how would I know which posts were reported or how many times?), deployed it and then insisted on its accuracy despite obvious flaws. I think that's a bad way to behave on the motte, and I think you should stop it.
I understand it falls afoul of the speak plainly rule, however past conversations have taught me that no matter how I phrase it, if I simply tell you you have made a mistake you will dismiss me automatically. And reporting you is pointless as I have explained before. So this time I made the same argument you did, so you could discover the problems with it for yourself.
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