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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   27127 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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Are we going to see the far right attempt to form an alliance with the left in the hopes that their shared antisemitism will be sufficient to gain political power?

No. Progressive beliefs are fundamentally an attempt to signal status. Affiliating with the lowest people on the status hierarchy (alt-right, rural, white) defeats the whole purpose.

Communists don't pal around with fascists even though horseshoe theory means they end up having more in common with each other than with a centrist.

Progressive beliefs are fundamentally an attempt to signal status.

They're more than that. Progressivism is not simply a social signaling game, but rather is a coherent worldview.

Communists don't pal around with fascists even though horseshoe theory means they end up having more in common with each other than with a centrist.

Communists frequently don't pal around with other communists either, so this proves nothing. Likewise, if you look at clan-based societies like those found in Afghanistan or the Caucuses, you see a lot of vicious blood feuds. This isn't because the local population is wildly different, it's because they're fundamentally the same, and their shared nature encourages blood feuds.

Progressivism is not simply a social signaling game, but rather is a coherent worldview.

I'm assuming that the worldview you are referring to is that there are "oppressors and oppressed" and society should enforce rules (even unfair ones) to help the oppressed at the expense of the oppressors.

While this might be a coherent world view, it is not a stable one.

If followed strictly, it would lead to the oppressed classes rising up and becoming the new rulers in a constant cycle of upheaval. (Mao came closest to stating this as an explicit goal).

Of course, in real life, this doesn't happen. Instead, it leads to the powerful adopting a cloak of righteousness as they put the boot on the necks of their social inferiors. As progressivism is mostly just Christianity minus God, it reminds me of nothing so much a pious Christian Crusader praying with true and genuine feeling before going into battle and slaughtering his enemies. This is the social signalling I'm referring to. You can do whatever you want as long as you are a "good" person according to the religion of the day.

While this might be a coherent world view, it is not a stable one.

If followed strictly, it would lead to the oppressed classes rising up and becoming the new rulers in a constant cycle of upheaval. (Mao came closest to stating this as an explicit goal).

Interestingly, I encountered a point somewhat like this in a podcast discussion of the current AI debates, arguing that of the major competing views today, the oppressors-and-oppressed DEI worldview is the one that most calls for automation. Specifically, that providing properly equitable compensation for inequities that doesn't overcompensate and produce these cycles and metaphorical pendulum-swings; and which doesn't oversimplify, but instead is sufficiently granular and "intersectional," requires vastly superhuman computational ability and a lack of human partiality and self-interest that would be best met by something like AGI. That perhaps the most stable end-goal for this system is The Computer going "today, this person suffered three microaggressions of severity X, and will receive three micro-transfers of size Y in equitable compensation" across all individuals in society, continuously. Fully Automated DEI Communism.

I'm assuming that the worldview you are referring to is that there are "oppressors and oppressed" and society should enforce rules (even unfair ones) to help the oppressed at the expense of the oppressors.

Beneath that, it's the belief that we know how to solve all our problems, and so that if a problem isn't solved, it's because someone is preventing the proper solution for their own selfish benefit. This, notably, is not similar to Christianity, and is why Progressivism creates problems that Christianity did not. Even Crusaders could negotiate truces in good faith on occasion, show mercy, limit conflict.

You can do whatever you want as long as you are a "good" person according to the religion of the day.

Specifically, you can do it to the Bad People getting in the way of the solutions: wreckers, kulaks, antisocial elements, reactionaries, racists, bigots, whatever the label may be.

I'd agree that it's not stable, in the sense that it doesn't deliver peace and prosperity, but only conflict and stagnation. But it is stable in the sense that itoffers coherent answers to most object-level questions, resists most naïve attempts at falsification, and can perpetuate itself longer than the average human lifespan.

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