domain:kvetch.substack.com
ControlsFreak
3hr ago
If I could, I'd like to take a rain check on this. I have an effort post in the works, and I think it's going to include this (at this moment, there is a minor chance that a narrow component of this will get edited out of that one and pushed further, so please remind me if it does).
In the meantime, here are a few comments/chains which contain some elements.
OliveTapenade
3hr ago
Well, if we go up-thread, I have been reading this whole conversation as being about whether it makes sense to describe feminism as downstream of Marxism, a species of Marxism, cultural Marxism, etc.
In that context I made the point that feminism is a much broader stream than Marxism, and much less ideologically coherent - Marxism has a clear central thinker, Marx, canonical texts, and so on, while those are more up-for-grabs in feminism. I then noticed that the most prominent or influential feminist texts of the 20th century that I can think of don't seem particularly Marxist.
ThisIsSin replied by saying "Feminism is redistributionist at its core, though", which I took in context as disagreeing with me. I don't think ThisIsSin was saying "feminism, like all political and social movements, is redistributionist" - I think he was saying, "actually, Olive, I think this is a significant similarity between feminism and Marxism".
In that context I think it was reasonable to ask what kind of redistribution he was talking about, and then to suggest that redistribution alone is not enough to constitute a significant similarity to Marxism.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
3hr ago
My feel (can't of course fully tell the atmosphere as a non-American) is that this sort of a thing would have got a bigger reaction and more fallout in literally any preceeding era than the current one. At this point basically anyone in politics under 45, left or right, has probably factored in the idea that young right-wingers are going to make rape and Holocaust jokes in private groupchats, but it's still evidently a wild concept to those over 45. (Since the olds are also likely the ones who hold the purse strings in orgs like this, of course the organizational leadership also has to react.)
2D3D
3hr ago
The terms nazi or hitler has no common meaning anymore, but it must be emphasized that the public generally understands the intent of meaning based on who the speaker is. A right winger calling himself a nazi is appropriating the maximalistically offensive affect to piss off liberals since a 13-52 Noticer is equivalent to a nazi anyways. A left winger levelling the accusation is trying to reputationally damage the other party by association, not actually sincerely believing that the right winger wants to implement dirigisme economics or cease supporting israel. Even right wing conspiraticism about Israel is AIPAC Noticing and old school WASP contempt for an uppity ingerior. not left wing desires for Israeli disarmanent and Palestinian rightmaxxing so the jews can be sacrificed on the multicultural altar. @cjet79 is absolutely correct that the leak of this groupchat is lame pointscoring at its worst and in fact reinforces the notion that leftists are hypocritical scolds (we can celebrate charlie kirk getting capped but nono words are proof of the Bad Nazi!)
If there was another group that was categorically evil and widely understood as such the left would totally use that label on their enemies. The problem for the left is that the term has been so devalued thanks to overuse that the right can just yeschad the accusation, and the shifting of the overon window has made previously verboten issues like black underachievement fit for discussing now.
Primaprimaprima
Aliquid stat pro aliquo
3hr ago
I was gonna say that if this all blew over with nothing happening then I would finally admit that the pendulum is swinging and woke is on the downturn. But I see that a few people have already stepped down, so, yeah. Anyone trying to say that “the era of woke is over” is coping.
fluid_pride
3hr ago
MAGA is also characterized by a denial of objective truth and widespread kleptocracy
This is also very obviously true of the Democrat party (see, eg, Burisma, 50 years of NGO graft, and various officials claiming to have seen Joe Biden doing cartwheels). As such, it doesn't tell us anything in particular about MAGA, except that you don't like it.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
3hr ago
True, but building up a cadre willing and able to implement that plan requires significant preparation, and during that preparation the naïve will claim the ideology is all about peace and love, the brotherhood of man, and gradual, incremental, painless reform.
Lenin and Mao did not do that while building up their movements. Both were always clear that their goals required a violent seizure of power, followed by a violent purge of society.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
4hr ago
Joke's on you, most of this applies to modern liberals as well.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
4hr ago
Not quite. There's a sub-set of the right that's very, very much into hating Russia.
Yes - but that is the pro-establishment right, who have been totally pwned in intra-right politics by the anti-establishment right.
There isn't a right-wing faction that are influential in the Trump administration or the MAGA movement more broadly that are "very much into hating Russia"
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
4hr ago
Yeschad.jpg
If you look at the nature of the thing and not the political rhetoric, fascism and communism are more similar than different. If they were materially different, it would be obvious which Orwell's Oceania is. The whole point of Nineteen eighty-four is that it isn't.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
4hr ago
but it wasn't going to be captivated by communist agitators any time soon.
While I agree with you that the US is not actually in danger of imminent capture by communist agitators, a key part of the MAGA worldview is that the Democratic Party, Ivy League, mainstream media, FAANG middle management etc. already have been captured by communist agitators, and that the threat of said communist agitators consolidating power and imposing the Glorious Bugpod Future is an emergency that justifies tearing up the rulebook.
If "Drives support from small-c conservatives by exaggerating the threat of Communism" is a warning sign of fascism (and I think it is, though it is a long way from being pathognomic), then it is one of the warning signs that MAGA triggers.
SkoomaDentist
The Greater Finnish Empire
4hr ago
It should have been (and in some ways was!) the scandal of the century. All the more reason such mistake (giving a US president an entirely premature Nobel peace prize) shouldn't be repeated.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
4hr ago
The vast majority of political domestic terrorists in democracies are regionalist movements - normally full-on secessionists (like the IRA, ETA, and Tamil Tigers) but occasionally groups demanding a level of autonomy that would require the central government and its voter base to compromise their principles (like the first Klan and later the Redeemers in the former Confederacy).
Most such groups think that they have supermajority support among "their people" - they may even be right - but are aware that they don't have majority support or anything close to it in the country as a whole.
I think the same paradigm applies to the Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, and other radical Black groups in the US - the only reason that they aren't secessionist is the absence of a defined territory to secede in.
Avc87
4hr ago
If you truly believe you are living in a fascist country, or that fascism is a serious possibility in the near future, then you should obviously not take up arms. You should either keep your head down or flee.
CertainlyWorse
No one is coming. It's just you.
4hr ago
Such as JD Vance, whose only comment is to call it "pearl clutching"
He's got a good finger on the pulse. If you had the same access to 'Young Democrats' or whatever it is on a college campus, you could 'both sides' this pretty quickly. Edgy backroom shit-talking isn't the same as public mass incitement to violence.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
4hr ago
Now I have to disagree with our vice president here, I don't think it is pearl clutching to oppose support of Hitler.
I probably should write something more elaborate, in the spirit of cjet's post, but I'm sorry I cant be arsed to take any of this seriously anymore. I believe all this is, in fact, pearl clutching, that there is no actual moral outrage expressed by people trying to make a mountain of this particular molehill, and it's just a cynical attempt to make the outgroup jump through the ingroup hoops.
I refuse, and I will need material evidence that anyone is actually bothered by any if this, before addressing it seriously.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
5hr ago
All good points.
I skipped over the economic angle and indeed fascist economics is significant, it's all about advancing national interests rather than pure marketism or collectivism as you say. I think the key element is the demographic part though, fascism isn't about making the country rich but about making the people strong and populous too, Mussolini had his 'Battle for Births' and as usual, the Nazis and Japan did a better job at it with their pro-natal campaigns.
While Italy wasn't terribly racist by Axis standards, they did heavily suppress Libya and went in very hard against Ethiopia with gas and such. But it's hard to be that racist if you can't actually conquer very much. They wanted to resettle Italians to Libya and Ethiopia and parts of Dalmatia but didn't get around to it with wartime difficulties.
The People's Republic of China shares fascism's characteristic of binding capitalists, workers, intellectuals and so on under an extremely powerful and nationalistic government
Yeah China's an odd one, they've got the economics but not the foreign posture. Rhetorically, diplomatically, they're still third-worldist and anti-imperialist.
FistfullOfCrows
5hr ago
I'm not a doctor but isn't it true with repeated pokes it gets harder and harder to hit the veins on the same site? Like maybe she was also doing needles before?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
5hr ago
Top level comment is filtered.
cjet79
5hr ago
This is in fact lame
I know discord chats. I know signal chatrooms. I know locker room joking. I can't help but roll my eyes at this, and I probably agree with Vance the most that it is Pearl Clutching. I'd also agree with Hanania that for a private group chat this is tame (and I'd go further and say that it is in fact kind of lame for how tame it is).
There are public spaces and there are private spaces. In public spaces you should expect hostile audiences and for people to take your words seriously. You better say what you mean and mean what you say, because you be held to account. In private spaces ... well we aren't actually robots capable of perfect emotional control all the time. Sometimes you want to blow off steam, or say ridiculous things you don't mean, or exaggerate for a joke. Or god forbid, the worst of all, have a friendly audience reading and interpreting your thoughts.
I understand trying to use whatever ammo you get against your political opponents. I just can't imagine any scenario where I'd condemn my political allies for this kind of leaked chat group. Especially one with younger professionals. God forbid I ever get judged for the things I have said in private spaces.
Making friends 101
I've had a mostly tame internet life because around 2009 I started considering everything I typed and wrote online to be public, even when written under a pseudonym. I try to write things that I am willing to attach to my name and identity. I do not have the same rules for spoken conversation or private group messaging. If you have not said things in private conversations that would get you pilloried and lampooned in public then I would submit that you have no real friends. Its a trust exercise. Say heinous crap, get a laugh, then they say heinous crap back. Or if its not funny, you still say heinous crap back because its a sign of trust in a society where certain opinions can get you "cancelled". Even if its your real opinion and your real opinion sucks and I hate it and think its evil, I can signal that I'm a real friend by being like "ok im not gonna hold that shit opinion against you".
And why the hell am I explaining all of this? Is everyone else just pretending this is not how the world works while we put on a public facade of 'oh yes this is so terrible, how could anyone ever say this'? Or is it genuinely secret knowledge to people about how to make friends and socialize? If its the former, drop it, we don't need to lie about the world here. If its the latter ... I'm sorry I don't mean to be harsh. But try something for me ... go nurse some beers at a bar. Try and find a lonely guy to talk with. One hour into the conversation start making it clear that you are something absolutely reprehensible. A nazi, a closet racist, a former criminal, etc. As long as it is not something directly antagonistic to the guy you are speaking with (can't be a racist to a black guy, that is hard mode and you can try it next time) they will mostly shrug it off and proceed to tell you something equally reprehensible about themselves. It can sometimes accidentally turn into a one-upmanship of "im the worst human ever". I was drunk enough to type up an example of what me and one of my friends do in the "worst human ever" one-upmanship game. But that violates my other rule of treating this like a public space.
As always I can test my acceptance of this by how I'd respond to people of different viewpoints saying this shit. And I remember "oh yeah I lived with a guy who was kinda communist". He definitely joked that me and my libertarian self would be one of the first ones up against the wall when the revolution came. I have another person I knew that is now a mayor in a small Pennsylvania town. I have video of him petting an endangered species (manatee), and saying the n-word just to get a rise out of another person on the trip we were on (I might have that on video as well). I like him more for having done those things. But I actually strongly dislike the guy. If he had not done those things in front of me, but I had evidence of him doing it, I'd probably happilly release those things.
Someone failed the trust test, or just didn't want to be a part of it all anyways. All the people that got caught saying heinous shit should resign, but mostly because they failed in the judgement test between a private and public space. Probably one of the most important social skills to have if you are a politician. This whole incident says little else.
TwiceHuman
5hr ago
Well, life originated on earth about 4 billion years ago. Between that time and now, qualia has slowly come into existence. Emotions, consciousness, subjective taste, ego, and other such things. I also have reasons to believe that individuality and higher levels of consciousness are somewhat recent (say, developed over the past 5000 years). But more generally, what I'm claiming is "In a completely material universe, qualia emerged due to some unknown factors, and now it seems that these factors might be disappearing again".
Why would it outcompete an equivalent setup
It must have, otherwise it wouldn't exist. The reasoning I'm using is the same that Darwin used, survival of the fittest is a tautology in a sense. If consciousness resulted in a lower fitness, I believe it must necessarily have disappeared. Another fun fact we can deduce from this is that suffering is good (useful), and that deeming suffering to be bad (a problem) is useful as well. So, suffering is good but we're meant to think that it's not.
Some more arguments for why qualia might disappear:
What you learn in school is to be less human, less spontaneous, less biased, less subjective. The socialization process is basically destroying parts of yourself until you fit within the mold. The goal of most religions is suppressing parts of yourself (Buddhism takes this idea the furthestm though). The system just wants you to be useful and productive, and you're judged by your utility alone. In society we value fairness, impartiality, reason, level-headedness, stoicism and other behaviour at which robots happen to be perfect because they lack qualia. Most psychiatry and medicine works by numbing qualia. Most psychological defense mechanisms have the goal of numbing qualia. Most people life in constant distraction (escapism) and hate being alone with themselves. Most philosophies are designed around lowering qualia, bringing it towards zero: "This too shall pass", "Nothing really matters". It's all dead-mans morality, minimization of the human experience, a sort of suicide and glorification thereof.
The remaining aspects are collapsing into categories of superstimuli (porn, girlfriend ASMR videos, power-fantasy manga, slice-of-life manga, gambling, spices, reaction videos, fast food, massage, roleplaying, daydreaming) and serve as drugs to satiate or numb a category of human needs.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
5hr ago
Those are exactly the same things that, for instance, conservatives seek to obtain. Does that make conservatism a form of Marxism?
There is a sense in which feminism, among other priorities, seeks to redistribute various goods in society towards women, on the premise that the current distribution favours men in a way that is both unequal and unjust. But to say that that shows some connection to Marxism obviously proves too much.
I agree, but you'll notice that the comment I was responding to didn't say "Not all redistribution is Marxism." It said "What is feminism redistributing? Reproduction? Family? Male attention? Social status?", implying that it's ridiculous to say feminism redistributes anything material, or worse that the opposition to feminism stems from a desire to force them to reproduce. The implication itself would have been bad enough, but the immediate change of the argument upon the slightest amount of questioning is even worse.
Any movement advocating any action whatsoever is going to demand some kind of redistribution, because action is inherently redistributive - action requires resources, and resources need to be distributed from somewhere.
You're the one proving too much. Even within feminism, there were postulates that didn't require redistribution, like lifting restrictions on access to bank accounts, various trades, or property.
Not always. The 20's and early 30's (aka the years of peak Marxism) were all about new culture and everything old was derided. I think [Alexander Nevsky (1938)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky_(film)) was the first instance when a historical figure, a "great man" was shown in a positive context. Before that, everything associated with the "great men" of old was held in contempt, as nobles and clerics and merchants of any kind, native of foreign, were viewed as the natural enemies of the "common men".
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