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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27553 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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And obviously the people who agree with the woke like you do

Hi there, I've been posting in rat-adjacent spaces under this pseudonym since the fall semester of 2012, yet clearly you are unfamiliar with me. If you were you would already know what my reply is going to be.

I see your claim that "unlike the woke we need to actually try to separate legitimate victimization with illegimate" and raise you. We need to reject the entire victimhood narrative/framing device wholesale. It's all illegitimate. Hegel's whole schtick about oppressors and the oppressed is a crock that bears only a tangential resemblance to the real world. Likewise, the entire concept of "slave-morality" is what the kids these days call "a cope" a desperate attempt by 19th century leftists to rescue their narrative from the increasingly overwhelming evidence of history. Amusing when viewed in light of the post about Napoleon's legacy up thread.

I see your claim that "unlike the woke we need to actually try to separate legitimate victimization with illegimate" and raise you. We need to reject the entire victimhood narrative/framing device wholesale. It's all illegitimate.

I didn't read OP's comment and have no interest in alt-right talking points, but isn't this an un-Christian take? Imo concern for victims is a much more ancient, Christian idea than a Hegelian one. My main problem with the current victimhood stuff very much is that I see it used by people who are already well off and privledged to look down on others. Figuring out the people in society who are actually struggling and uplifting them seems like a very reasonable Christian project - certainly that was the kind of thing I was taught in church at least.

Privileged/disadvantaged is exceptionally close to bully/victim, but it isn't the same. Being a victim doesn't make you righteous, it increases the possibility, but that's beside the point because victim hood isn't what's important - what is important is that you help people who are suffering so they don't have to suffer.

Not against that, but it still suggests looking at things through the framework of figuring out who the victims are (in order to uplift them) is valid, ordinary Christian business.

It does, but I worry that that's why mainstream Christianity has gone so astray and is currently falling apart. We made a measure a target. Basically I'm with hlynka, we need to abolish the victimhood narrative, not rework it - and while there might be versions of Christianity which support the victimhood narrative, they are flawed imo compared to our borderer shtick of personal responsibility and finding meaning in helping others.

Hegel's whole schtick about oppressors and the oppressed is a crock that bears only a tangential resemblance to the real world

The oppressor/oppressed bit is aaaaa-bsolutely not a Hegel original. His contribution (founding contribution IMO) to the current sickness was that knowledge begins with a relation among things, which is where the idea of oppressor/oppressed ultimately comes from, but was not him. He wasn't exactly an old school conservative, but he also isn't clearly recognizable as a modern liberal or leftist in any way whatsoever.

Likewise, the entire concept of "slave-morality" is what the kids these days call "a cope" a desperate attempt by 19th century leftists to rescue their narrative from the increasingly overwhelming evidence of history.

Also, Nietzsche was also completely not a leftist. The slave morality is indeed supposed to be a cope, of a sort, not of the 19th century but of the 7th century, BC. An ideology reaction of the Jews to their conquest by virile, life affirming masters.

The Leftist affair with Nietzsche is not based upon his being in any way on their side. He wasn't. The Masters are the good guys in his telling, to the extent there are any. The horrible man-beasts whose pure will and lack of moral feeling are not Leftists. Their love of him is based on outright ignoring most of what he had to say in order to grasp at a sense of libertinism.

The slave morality is indeed supposed to be a cope, of a sort,

You misunderstand.

Nietzsche may not have been a leftist but Nietzsche's philosophy starts from a position that the primary axioms of the left are true. That Rousseau is Right and Hobbes is wrong, that the church are a bunch of stupid meanies wanting to regulate your behavior, and that personal emancipation and actualization are the greatest of all goods. When I say "the entire concept of slave-morality is a cope" I'm not saying that slave morality is a cope. I'm saying the entire concept is a cope.

That "The slave morality is indeed supposed to be a cope, of a sort, not of the 19th century but of the 7th century, BC. An ideology reaction of the Jews to their conquest by virile, life affirming masters." is the sort of lie secular left-wing continental Europeans tell themselves to avoid confronting the fact that they lost the great power race to a nation of shopkeepers (the British Empire) and their mongrel ner-do-well foster kids (the US).

philosophy starts from a position that the primary axioms of the left are true

No, it really doesn't.

That Rousseau is Right and Hobbes is wrong

Uh are you sure about that? Nietzsche doesn't really "start" with the idea that all men are created equal, and I don't think you're talking intelligently about him or his work if you make that claim.

I'm honestly not sure if this is just you reacting to a half-baked understanding of Nietzsche gleaned from a mixture of other people reacting to his work (and maybe some disconnected quotes) or an incredibly artisanal hot take, but I feel like stressing that Nietzsche's philosophy very much did not start from the axiom that all men are created equal.

Rousseau's core axiom is not "that all men are created equal".

Rousseau's core axioms are, that all injustice is a product of social structure, and that social structures are imposed from the top down. Accordingly, the first step to building a healthier and more just society must be to demolish and discredit the existing social structures/norms. It is this conclusion that both Nietzsche and the political left are starting from.

However, as @FCfromSSC observes, the logical end point of this sort of belief is that there is no such thing as morality or "a higher law". Everything is "the will to power" all the way down. And I would argue that is why explicitly secular progressive and technocratic governments have displayed a historical tendency to pile mountains of skulls that put the likes of Genghis Kahn and the Holy Roman Emperors to shame.

Rousseau's core axiom is not "that all men are created equal".

You'll have to forgive me, because I thought that's what you were referring to when you opened up with talk of the primary axioms of the left. Equality and equity are very big bugbears on the left, and that's what my mind immediately jumped to when you spoke about a core axiom of Rousseau in the context of core axioms of the left.

However, as @FCfromSSC observes, the logical end point of this sort of belief is that there is no such thing as morality or "a higher law". Everything is "the will to power" all the way down. And I would argue that is why explicitly secular progressive and technocratic governments have displayed a historical tendency to pile mountains of skulls that put the likes of Genghis Kahn and the Holy Roman Emperors to shame.

I don't even see anything here that Nietzsche himself would disagree with. My understanding of his stance is that morality is in fact just another expression of the will to power, and it isn't like he has a terribly big problem with mountains of skulls. I think he'd disagree heartily with the left on exactly whose skulls should be put onto the pile, but the existence of it isn't really a problem from within his philosophy. Yes people are going to die, and as long as they aren't great people, who cares?

That said, I don't think there's all too much aversion to mountains of skulls these days. If you gave rationalists a button which said "In exchange for 98% of Subsaharan Africans getting their skulls removed and placed into a giant pyramid you will receive a perfectly aligned AI and full implementation of your desired social policies" I think that there'd be more than a few willing to push it.

Uh are you sure about that? Nietzsche doesn't really "start" with the idea that all men are created equal, and I don't think you're talking intelligently about him or his work if you make that claim.

...I don't think @HlynkaCG is claiming that Neitzche starts from the axiom that "all men are created equal". He's free to correct me, but he seems to be arguing, correctly in my view, that Neitzche starts from the axiom that humans are in charge, that there is no basis for morality beyond the human mind, that there is no God and no innate moral order to the universe, beyond what we impose on it through our own will and nature. That, not equality, is the core axiom of Rousseau, in my view.

That, not equality, is the core axiom of Rousseau, in my view.

I can appreciate that, but I was under the impression that we're talking about the overlap between Rousseau and the political left - which is why my brain pattern-matched the way it did.

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