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That tends to happen when people are disenfranchised.

If you are aware you are then take a step back and think rationally about your views

As the years go by it becomes ever more apparant that the propaganda was the only damn thing in the Tory party that worked as it should. In fact, the contrast in competence is so stark I start to think it didnt have a damn thing to do with the party at all.

It is utterly facinating how they showed they knew precisely the course to take that would make them popular and successful to the degree of becoming a defacto one party state. The spend election cycles setting up the party for success… then the party itself does none of it.

Well no propaganda network will save them next election, there is no issue on the cards they could put forward that wont be slapped down with "who's been in charge for the last 14 years?"

First, Glass houses.

Second, I only accede to the lable radical because I dont want to have the overton window talk for the fifteenth time. What I am becoming is alienated; uninvested, apathetic and resentful to the status quo.

The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. Mine is a growing malcontent demographic whose ascendancy is typically a woeful portent for any society.

My feelings of dread for those portents are fading due to the aformentioned alienation.

Is that rational enough for you?

You're as alienated as these people are and that's okay. I'm alienated and tired too. I genuinely don't blame you.

But I don't think foreigners are to blame. They struggle under this broken system, same as you, if not more so because of the unfair social contract we live under.

That they're somehow conspiring to replace and destroy your country is what the upper classes want you to believe. They're two-faced. From one news channel, they say they're accepting while doing the bare minimum, and from another they say they're a plague to be defeated. All this is to make sure they keep getting richer and richer so that the government wouldn't force them to share their gains with their fellow man through welfare, regulations and more.

They don't even see those immigrants as people, just as cheap underpaid labor.

The ruling class' desire for a cheap easier to control workforce through divide and rule, or the logical conclusion of a ruling class in the midst of cultural self loathing. The motive doesnt actually matter they are identical in practice.

Both use the same mechanisms in the same way and get the same utterly identical results; the replacement of a wealthy, sentimental, homogenous, workforce capable of collective action and bargaining as well as political coordination with a poor, atomized, alienated workforce whose autonomy is crippled by perpetual culture shock and deprivation, whose political capital is divided between religious and ethnic incompatabilities.

That's happening right here, right now, through unfettered mass immigration, the theory is immaterial, the event of a great replacement is reality here and through it they are making the same enviroment at home that once made british dominion over india possible.

The Colonial office has been resurrected and when the natives werent being divisive enough on thier own they imported new divisions to neuter collective action.

At the risk of being further labelled…boring?… I want to illustrate how this rhetoric is in fact the same as that used in the past.

the replacement of a wealthy, sentimental, homogenous, workforce capable of collective action and bargaining

crippled by perpetual culture shock and deprivation, whose political capital is divided between religious and ethnic incompatabilities

You do see how much more obvious the points are here, yes? The upset is that Britain is being brought down by the "incompatable" ethnicities that disrupt the well functioning superior country, which was once great and wealthy and powerful. He compares an influx of immigrants to an influx of attackers and enemies of the state. He compares the happenings in sum to a colonial, occupying force, which he compares ironically to British armies creating the Raj.

He claims a nation that was once strong becomes weaker, its culture a state of disarray, its people poorer and ruled by the others. He claims there is something that cannot be tolerated in the foreigners, not in their beliefs, customs, or values, but in their ethnicity itself, something that no man, woman, child, or human being otherwise can change.

Allow me to quote the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Nazi propagandists exploited pre-existing images and stereotypes to give a false portrayal of Jews. In this false view, Jews were an “alien race” that fed off the host nation, poisoned its culture, seized its economy, and enslaved its workers and farmers. The Nazis claimed that “race mixing” through marriage weakened Germany.

I am not, as some claim, so ready to label everything with a broad stroke and fulfill Godwin's law. I've just seen this platform very closely, and can see it for what it really is. It is not just a discussion on disenfranchisement and alienation, or representation. It is full on, puerile hatred for the foreigners at its core.

That is what separates it from, say, someone who only contends that a country has an intrinsic economic limit to how many refugees and immigrants can be accepted at a time. That has a quantitative argument, one that maybe acknowledges economic and logistic realities that invites spirited discussion on ethical and moral conflicts. But this? This guy straight up told you the immigrants are destroying his ethnically homogenous homeland. That is ACTUALLY race supremacist nonsense.

I'll also note he edited his last line: He originally wrote "The Colonial office has been resurrected and now it rules britain" rather than "when the natives werent being divisive enough on thier own they imported new divisions to neuter collective action". Perhaps he thought that line was a touch on the nose (or a thin strip right under, as it were)? Remarkable that he considers that enough of a problem to update, but stands by his statements on ethnicities.

Sure, just ignore ALL obvious online context

Calling things people have made up "obvious" doesn't make it true.

Yeah, that sounds like a moral panic to me.

That is admittedly hyperbolic, but you see, the point is subtle: the fate of the native American and the plight of Palestine are both things your garden-variety "diversity is our strength" progressive care about – so comparing those situations to the products of such beliefs triggers an emotional response sparked by a period of cognitive dissonance. They don't need to be identical, just carry enough similarities to cause a double-take.

I'm a doctoral student

Sí, y soy el presidente de México. Lying about your credentials to make yourself look smarter is also a desperate move.

Was it?

To me, yes. And that's the only perspective that matters.

He can't be assed to express properly the language his forbears created

There's no one true "proper way" to express English; we can't even agree on how to spell "color"! His forebearers wouldn't really care about misplaced apostrophes or unusual syntax; in fact, many of them likely used "it's" as the possessive form of "it".

That's seven words, and ones that basically mean the same thing.

No, there's extra layers of nuance and meaning. One can be boring without being annoying or unproductive. You're both those things.

Also >unironically citing Wikipedia articles
I shiggy diggy

If you are aware you are then take a step back and think rationally about your views

Going "oh gee I should stay within the Overton window until the powers that be respect me again" isn't a productive solution to disenfranchisement, especially on a large scale. If disenfranchisement progresses from an occasional issue to a common one, it's evident that something simply isn't working, and that the only way to fix things is to rock the boat.

ethnic incompatabilities

Culture is what drives this type of strife, not ethnicity. There is obviously a connection, but they're different things.

I am not, as some claim, so ready to label everything with a broad stroke and fulfill Godwin's law.

[citation needed]

They don't need to be identical, just carry enough similarities to cause a double-take.

It is too bad the comparisons are just completely off in all the critical ways then. It is also a shame the only thing you get from this is that it's "an emotional response" and literally look past every time this dude digs deeper and affirms his problem is one of blood, not character.

Sí, y soy el presidente de México. Lying about your credentials to make yourself look smarter is also a desperate move.

"To me, yes, and that's the only perspective that matters." But also, I actually am enrolled in grad school.

There's no one true "proper way" to express English

Sounds like someone who dropped out of grammar school!

His forebearers wouldn't really care about misplaced apostrophes or unusual syntax

Conveniently you left out the bigger part about his forebears* being immigrants to England though…You do realize the parts you refuse to acknowledge are also conspicuous right?

Also >unironically citing Wikipedia articles

Better to cite Wikipedia than The Daily Stormer

Going "oh gee I should stay within the Overton window until the powers that be respect me again" isn't a productive solution to disenfranchisement

What a shame that he went from the Overton window into "keep the damn dirty immigrants off my island" then! Remarkably, this is you openly admitting his views are extreme, despite your continued attempts to try to moderate them.

Culture is what drives this type of strife, not ethnicity. There is obviously a connection, but they're different things.

So why did he literally list ethnicity as the problem? If you can actually address this issue without going on an irrelevant tangent about the other points I would be impressed.

You know who I dont like? Cops

Imagine going to Hawaii for RnR and seeing it on fire… I hope we do more than just vote for the environment this year.

We should send strongly-worded letters to China and India advising them to "maybe chill" on the coal power plants. Or kindly ask "environmentalist" multi-millionaires to cut back on the private jet habit.

If nothing else, either will be more effective than nuking our standard of living.

At least we can all agree we wont be able to stop the world from getting flooded

In the latest news from clownworld, aka florida the fascists have passed a bill banning teaching about basic health issues like periods and stds, you know something spread by blood just as well, before 6th grade

Yeah its all over the USA will become a teocracy and bring back segregation in like 5 years we fucked up severely.

Oh well it was nice while it lasted.

At least we can all agree we wont be able to stop the world from getting flooded

The thing to keep in mind here is that it'll most likely happen on a longer time scale than we currently expect. "Longer time scale" here meaning "at least a few decades later". It tends to work this way, due to an overreliance on worst-case predictions.

florida… have passed a bill banning teaching about basic health issues like periods and stds… before 6th grade

This is Florida HB 1069, right? There doesn't seem to be much about reproductive health specifically in the most recent version, instead saying that such materials need to be approved by the State Department of Education. This may be a more recent change made to permit explanations in the case of early menstruation, or I might be missing something due to being hungry.

Most focus is on moving the earliest point of explicitly discussing sexual orientation and gender identity to the ninth grade instead of the fourth, and on enshrining in legal text that human biological sex is a binary and immutable. Which is completely true, despite some occasional controversy. What's much more controversial is the mandate that pronouns must remain aligned with one's biological sex.

Yeah its all over the USA will become a teocracy and bring back segregation in like 5 years we fucked up severely.

People have been trying to bring back segregation for a while now, from both sides of the aisle. I don't think it'll happen, but I do think that the gerontocracy will collapse under its own weight soon.

You know, the fires in Hawaii are awful wastes of property and life, but one funny thing came out of it.

Apparently conspiracy nutjobs have decided the fact that trees evolved to carry water due to the hot climate of Hawaii didn't burn means that no, the fires aren't from global warming, they are in fact from THERMITE, OR SPACE LAZORS! You see, the EEEVIL globalist menace has apparently decided to destroy cities in Hawaii so they may forcibly institute 15 minute city's that are policed to prevent people from leaving and where cars are banned!

Nevermind that the fire didn't touch the road networks, or that fire resistance is a trait many trees have evolved that houses made of dead wood don't have, or that Hawaii is literally the worst place to try and force a tyrannical judge dredd city due to the local resources and geography. IT HAS TO BE A CONSPIRACY!

Or they could be from Guinea grass, which isn't native to Hawai'i, is extreme fire hazard, and has been an invasive species that has displaces or suppresses native plants. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Similarly how Eucalypts were introduced to California where they took over and are a massive fire risk which has exacerbated the already fire-prone Chaparral ecosystem.

I'm sure climate change has some impact on it, but not all natural disasters are a result of climate change. I say, in the case of Hawai'i the invasive grasses, plus a perfect storm of abnormal drought season and a hurricane in the south just culminated into a terrible situation.

Incidentally, the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai 2021 eruption may have temporarily showed us the effects of climate if it goes above the 1.5C mark.

@HomogenousSmoothie

You showing off your bonafides in some sort of a relevant degree comes off as peak midwit behavior. Your view of issues is so utterly simplistic that you're constantly appealing to your credentials as the only means of being correct. It screams insecurity about being challenged – that you can easily brush it off because it's not the content of what you're being challenged with, but the lack of credentials.

It just looks silly, and just a product of a hyper over-educated society that hasn't shown itself to be anymore intelligent than it was 50 years ago.

Personally, since COVID I've lost a tremendous amount of respect for academia, and seeing how utterly stupid people are that go to universities kind of solidified to me that a degree is no longer a means to determine if someone's opinion should be taken seriously. Nor does it tell me that they are in anyway even competent.

"Midwit"
"hyper over-educated society"
Lol imagine unironically saying this

and your nonsense about covid was debunked

Midwits are a result of a over-educated society. People who are only marginally smarter than others flaunt their degrees as some sort of reason to be taken seriously, and disregard anyone who lacks the "correct credentials".

And no. Nothing about what I said about the response to COVID has been debunked. On the contrary, they've become increasingly poignant.

I was deeply concerned about the societal consequences of unnecessary lockdowns, censorship, and deliberate misinformation by people in positions of power and authority in government, science, and the media. A lot of data supports what I was right to be concerned.

Whoah, a lot happened in the week that I was away. I'll try to read and respond from the bottom-up.

@Chewybunny

Midwits

I disagree, and part of my argument is the previous child labour discussion we had. If you're alright with continuing on that?

A lot of the currently anti-intellectualism and theocratic policies from the American Right doesn't make economic, political or societal sense. (Well, it doesn't make sense if you want to keep a prosperous and functioning democracy). And once again, it's not as if they're offering trade schools either, because that's still education.

You know that 21% of the US is functionally illiterate according to 2022 statistics? 54% apparently read below the level of 11-12 years olds ! It's failure not in tertiary or even secondary education, but primary level teaching !

And it's not just the US either, British boys are the only group which have seen a crash in enrollment in tertiary education in the UK and general educational attainment, never-mind that they tend to fall behind in school in general. The only group ! I'm sure that would concern the people here…

And it's not as if they make more money either, their income rates are constantly falling.

This is something I personally despise, it's self-sabotage of oneself, I hate that you can tell when a kid is going into this weird pipeline, because they stop trying at school. Add that with a lack of support. It happens in France as well, happens everywhere it seems…

I was deeply concerned about the societal consequences of unnecessary lockdowns, censorship, and deliberate misinformation by people in positions of power and authority in government, science, and the media. A lot of data supports what I was right to be concerned.

Is COVID's handling something anyone can be happy about? Is anyone happy? We had the economic hit and it killed a lot of people because there was a lack of rigour. The above topic of lack of education and the prevalence and popularity of conspiracy theories was what I was concerned about, and look what happened.

This is likely the first pandemic where it wasn't age or wealth that necessarily affected death rates, it's political alignement. Those who were for letting it run rampant, were the ones who suffered. A rare case where a brutal ideology was practiced on it's adherents first (some anyway, Fox News famously vaccinated their entire team while peddling conspiracies).

And there's a lot of data supporting that as well. All because instead of vaccines there were attempts to justify bleach, praying (Korea is a prime example in an otherwise good response), horsedewormers or whatever other miracle solution was being touted. For a brief moment, we saw our own version of the Bronze Age collapse, an example of an advanced state regressing as people go back to superstition.

I can't even muster as much outrage, as just being depressed by it all. The one person I knew who went hard into these theories died. How do you blame the dead? It's a failure collectively, and I think it's why people don't want to talk about it.

Thinking about it, like the Spanish Flu COVID seems to be falling out of everyone's memory. Yet, like the Spanish Flu the effect it had on everyone's mental health still lingers.

It might be reaching, but after COVID a lot of people seem to have become … weird. People saying that others are less patient, more likely to fly off the handle etc… and it hasn't really gone away.

Russia itself had an excess death toll equal to the US's actual reported deaths from Covid (with 1/3 of the US's population). What does that do to a country?

Lol imagine unironically saying this

The term "midwit" is rather goofy, but the underlying meaning is applicable in this case; someone who's smart enough to see themselves as smart, but not smart enough to properly gauge the limits to their knowledge, making them come off as dumber than they actually are.

Similarly, "overeducation" is an established concept, being the idea that someone (or a collection of someones) has more education than is necessary or helpful. People have been considering it a societal issue for a while, such as in the job market.

More to the point,

Your view of issues is so utterly simplistic that you're constantly appealing to your credentials as the only means of being correct. It screams insecurity about being challenged – that you can easily brush it off because it's not the content of what you're being challenged with, but the lack of credentials.

This is a very accurate reading of Smoothie, and ultimately what I was trying to get at. Though I will go further and echo my prior sentiment: he doesn't even have these credentials, and is only using them to try and add legitimacy to his arguments where there otherwise isn't any.

And it's not just the US either, British boys are the only group which have seen a crash in enrollment in tertiary education in the UK and general educational attainment, never-mind that they tend to fall behind in school in general. The only group ! I'm sure that would concern the people here…

And it's not as if they make more money either, their income rates are constantly falling.

There's a number of factors playing in to all of these things, but there's a few I've seen given frequent citation:
1. The early school system treats boys as "dysfunctional girls" and not, you know, boys. This impacts both the quality of education and their interest in it.
2. Traditional academia has been providing worse and worse returns for the increasing investment it demands. The groups already more likely to take interest in career paths less reliant on colleges get pushed further into them.
3. Many colleges have a severe ideological bent, and typically of ideologies actively hostile to men. Again, this pushes men away from traditional academia.
4. A broader society that's increasingly hostile to masculinity as a whole, not just whatever is being considered "toxic". The pickings for male role models are sparse, and their questionable quality is a symptom of a society that's already not doing so well, not the cause.

I don't know what the solution is, but it's clear that the proper response to a society geared heavily towards men was not to gear it towards women instead.

It might be reaching, but after COVID a lot of people seem to have become … weird. People saying that others are less patient, more likely to fly off the handle etc… and it hasn't really gone away.

Mandated isolation feeding into an existing atmosphere of polarization. There are other factors, but this is what underpins everything else.

@Gilan
I don't think you understand the term midwit here. A midwit is a person with slightly above-average ability in certain domains and intelligence. Someone who is able to pass basic qualifications and overcome standard hurdles but who is in no way exceptional, and often has an over-inflated self worth when giving opinions. They often engage in displays of their intelligence through credentialism, which I find laughable. As you said, a large chunk of Americans are illiterate, and 54% of Americans read below 11-12 year old children. Yet, as of 2021, 37.9% of Americans, 25 and older have at least a bachelor's degree. Whether or not you believe those man-on-the-street videos but I don't find it particularly far fetched when I saw a tik-tok one where a dude asking these chicks in Venice Beach, California what the capitol of the US was and their response was bewilderment that we even had one – despite one admitting she goes to UCLA (One of the more prestigious universities).

I have low opinion of Academia because how utterly easy it is to get into it today, and how utterly easy it is to work yourself through the ranks. You'd think it is done on the merit of their research but instead it is done on the merit of conformity to the standard line.

Republican and Conservative anti-intellectualism is a misnomer, in my opinion, and observation. What they dislike is being told how to live their lives, what their opinions should be, what is and isn't correct despite going against their instinctual knowledge and largely from the bottom half of people with the degrees in this chart:

Largely, the managerial and political class, candidates for office, staffers, activists, journalists. What you'd find is far less disdain from opinions from the upper tiers of this class. Now you may say there is animosity towards the medical establishment, today, but that is largely due to recognizing the deep deep levels of corruption that was exposed through COVID.

>The above topic of lack of education and the prevalence and popularity of conspiracy theories was what I was concerned about, and look what happened.

You mean many of those conspiracy theories becoming true?
Things like blatant attempts by the government to coerce social media companies into censorship? Scientists outright lying and misinforming the public so they can to protect their skins from potential backlash for being involved with Wuhan Biolab (hence the infamous Lancet letter)? A news media gleefully lying to your face about Ivermectin being a horse-dewormed despite the fact that it is widely used, in low doses, as anti-parasitical medication? Our political, and media being so imbedded with pharmaceutical industry they had to downgrade the efficacy of the vaccine every few months when it was revealed that it wouldn't: stop the spread, prevent you from getting sick. Or the complete and total disregard for the type of masks when creating mask mandates, effectively treating N95 masks and bandanas as the same? Or the mountains of growing evidence that lockdowns had little to no effect on COVID related deaths – and instead had massive economic and educational problems for kids? When politicians who tell us that we have to obey these mandates but are caught openly disregarding them? Journalists who on hot-mic talking about how it's all bs when they don't think they are being filmed? Come on man. Don't you start gaslighting, as well.

You wonder why conspiracies are so ripe today? Why misinformation is spread so widely? Why nearly every institution has lost trust by the public at large in the US?

I'm sorry to keep this rant up.
I understand the usual response being "well the science evolves…", sure, it does, but don't fucking do everything in your power to shut down any dissenting voices that are questioning the wisdom or the rigor of the science, or people who are raising massive red flags about the scientists themselves.
And let's be real here. And I want you to be honest with me. When Fauci admitted that he initially said masking wouldn't prevent the spread because he wanted to make sure that the public wouldn't go out and buy these masks – so that they can be preserved for the medical staff, you think that was ethical? The right thing to do? And why exactly did we have such a low amount of N95 high quality masks unavailable for medical profession? Because neither the Trump, nor the Obama administration restocked them after the 2014 bird-flu outbreak. Is it ethical or moral or right, in your view, to risk the lives of tens if not hundreds of millions of people to protect the political class that has absolutely failed in doing the very basics of restocking these masks despite mountains of medical professionals saying that this is a serious problem if there would ever be a pandemic?
At the very least, wouldn't you expect a resignation? Some sort of accountability?
Be honest, here. Because that's been my rallying call for the last 3 years: perpetual failure of every level of our institutions with no accountability, and instead near cult like worship of these people? You bet I am pissed off. You bet I have empathy for the conspiracy theorists, and the anti-vaxx crowd. They've been lied to, in real time, and then gaslit, in real time, by the very institutions they have been brought up to believe in.

I'm no expert on the Spanish Flu, but from what I did read, the biggest lesson was that the number one thing the government or the medical institution can do in a pandemic, above all else, is retain legitimacy, and trust. If you don't trust the government, if you don't trust the institutions you get absolute chaos. It happened during the Spanish Flu. And it happened during the COVID pandemic. And when the next pandemic hits us, driven by climate change, or another disastrous leak from a biolab, that is far worse, I guarantee you we are going to follow the same exact blueprint.

People wanting to protect their own asses, sacrifice trust and legitimacy of the institutions they inhabit, and get no accountability in the process. And the cost? Millions of lives.

That's what I am pissed about. That's what I am black-pilled the most about. And holy hell, correct me if I am wrong, but your national comrades have rebelled for far less. It's why I'm proud as hell to getting suspended of twitter twice for tweeting that Newsom deserves the guillotine for what he's done during the pandemic.

One of the worst takes I have seen in my life

>Iq

conservative anti intellectualism revolves around new knowledge saying we should do things differently than traditions, and is compounded in the us with how offended americans get by being told to do anything

One of the worst takes I have seen in my life

Yeah that is pretty bad. At the same time, though, it makes good sense to judge historical figures by the standards of their time and place, and being cool with slavery wasn't really controversial in the 15th and 16th centuries. In fact, the Papacy approved of the enslavement of Muslims and pagans until a few centuries after his death.

There are claims that he was particularly brutal as governor of the Spanish West Indies, but these come from a political rival who wanted his job and hated him for being Italian, and thus their reliability is questionable.

When that knowledge goes against their values, such as personal liberties and freedoms, yeah, it get's rejected out of suspicion (hence why there is so much resistance among conservatives towards Climate Change, when the solutions proposed seem to focus primarily on anti-Capitalism, and transferring a tremendous amount of power to technocrats and bureaucrats).

When that knowledge puts them into a position where only one racial group is responsible for all the ills in this society, yeah they become hostile to it.

When that knowledge breaks down what is to everyone clearly obvious, such as what is a man or a woman, by drowning the definitions with neologism, academic and philosophical jargon, yeah it get's dismissed.

And by the way, it's not that different on the opposite side either. There is huge amount of hostility towards any person in the scientific community who questions the existing narratives of Climate Change, or how proposed solutions are implemented.

There is a large level of hostility towards sociologists who urge a color blind society. And reject this racialist world view.

There is massive hostility towards sociologists, psychologists, and scientists who dare to question the existing narratives of gender studies. Hell, they are actively canceled by the institutions for even daring.

Thing is, you can make the case that it is the Conservatives that have political power to do something about this, and they do, in places like Florida. But that is a recent phenomenon. Prior to the last year or so, most of the power lay in institutions that traditionally lean very left.

When that knowledge goes against their values, such as personal liberties and freedoms, yeah, it get's rejected out of suspicion (hence why there is so much resistance among conservatives towards Climate Change, when the solutions proposed seem to focus primarily on anti-Capitalism, and transferring a tremendous amount of power to technocrats and bureaucrats).

When that knowledge puts them into a position where only one racial group is responsible for all the ills in this society, yeah they become hostile to it.

When that knowledge breaks down what is to everyone clearly obvious, such as what is a man or a woman, by drowning the definitions with neologism, academic and philosophical jargon, yeah it get's dismissed.

And by the way, it's not that different on the opposite side either. There is huge amount of hostility towards any person in the scientific community who questions the existing narratives of Climate Change, or how proposed solutions are implemented.

There is a large level of hostility towards sociologists who urge a color blind society. And reject this racialist world view.

There is massive hostility towards sociologists, psychologists, and scientists who dare to question the existing narratives of gender studies. Hell, they are actively canceled by the institutions for even daring.

Thing is, you can make the case that it is the Conservatives that have political power to do something about this, and they do, in places like Florida. But that is a recent phenomenon. Prior to the last year or so, most of the power lay in institutions that traditionally lean very left.

Context should indeed be applied and the behavior of the time, but yes morals should be applied to it

Chewybunny's Drunkposting
(I had like, too many red ales and IPAs and barely made it home alive)

reflections on my feelings towards the reaction to COVID.
It's oddly strange that the biggest drivers of accelerationism towards Anarchy are the modern right, with it's absolute disdain and mistrust towards existing institutions, and a deep deep desire to tear it all down – manifested in Trump, a gorilla in the glass shop.

The left is all talk. They talk about revolution. They talk about taking it to the man.
But who exactly was it that ransacked the white house on Jan 6? Who was it that instilled existential dread into the political class?

Every major cultural, corporate, and political institutions has been ideologically captured by modern progressivism and became commodified. The real transgressive action is done by the right.

I'm going to get downvoted as all hell for this and I don't care at this point.
But from the perspective of anarchism, and revolutionary idealism, January 6th 2021 was a good thing, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't.

It is disgusting how easily the once dissident left let itself be castrated after Occupy.

@Chewybunny

I don't think you understand the term midwit here. A midwit is a person with slightly above-average ability in certain domains and intelligence. Someone who is able to pass basic qualifications and overcome standard hurdles but who is in no way exceptional, and often has an over-inflated self worth when giving opinions. They often engage in displays of their intelligence through credentialism, which I find laughable. As you said, a large chunk of Americans are illiterate, and 54% of Americans read below 11-12 year old children. Yet, as of 2021, 37.9% of Americans, 25 and older have at least a bachelor's degree.

My initial disagreement was that I disagreed with the idea that we're an over-educated society, when it seems that educational standards are falling in a lot of ways. If enough people can't read, someone pompous enough to flaunt their degree isn't the biggest problem.

I know there's a grudge against tertiary education, but my worry is that it's infected the opinion of primary and secondary education. Basic math, basic writing & reading, basic geography, basic sciences (especially earth sciences when it comes to climate change). How many issues are because the absolute basics aren't understood?

I have low opinion of Academia because how utterly easy it is to get into it today, and how utterly easy it is to work yourself through the ranks. You'd think it is done on the merit of their research but instead it is done on the merit of conformity to the standard line.

Sure, Spaghetto also mentioned the issues that boys in education have, it's a concern of mine. I just don't understand this response of sour grapes.

Of my former classmates, those who continued on in their training whether it was engineer, artist, or even woodworker (once again, I have nothing against the trades) did get jobs. It's those who threw in the towel, and did who knows what dead-end job who are having issues now.

You don't have to enter Academia, I never did, but once again, I don't understand the long-term strategy of a lot of the right vis-à-vis education.

Republican and Conservative anti-intellectualism is a misnomer, in my opinion, and observation. What they dislike is being told how to live their lives, what their opinions should be, what is and isn't correct despite going against their instinctual knowledge and largely from the bottom half of people with the degrees in this chart:

People say a lot of things about themselves. I'd like to point out that having followed the American Right's little culture war for the past year, the moniker of anti-intellectualism is quite right, from my observation. Also, there's a hint of hypocrisy, all for free speech until they censored, all for freedom until they dictate what others do. My first post was about this hypocrisy, all for sovereignty until they can crush others.

I'd like to point out that most politicians are from the bottom part of the chart and discussing COVID, a lot of the people who said that no, bleach enemas won't cure COVID were at the top.

Utah man posing as doctor selling fake COVID-19 cure arrested after three-year manhunt

I'm sorry to keep this rant up.

It's alright, I like ranting as well. However, the next part may not be a good discussion:

A news media gleefully lying to your face about Ivermectin being a horse-dewormed despite the fact that it is widely used, in low doses, as anti-parasitical medication?

Come on man. Don't you start gaslighting, as well.

The end-result is, ivermectin isn't effective against viruses, it's that simple ! It's against parasites. Investing in it (as Bolsanero's Brazil did) is pure idiocy. At the end of the day, what was the biggest and most harmful lie here? I don't know what to tell you, I'm not trying to gaslight you, I genuinely don't like how nonsense was touted when trust broke down. I don't know why you talk about big authoritarian groups, when there was big forces (including governments) spreading misinformation.

Your "conspiracies" are part of the state-line, it's not being a freedom fighter to repeat them.

Do I like the media and governmental handling of COVID? Of course not. The beginning where people tried to pretend nothing was going on was also worrying. It shows a weakness in the ability to deal with a crisis. But this "Black-pilling" just seems to latch onto an issue and than just go full despair on it. It's not constructive, and I'd like to point out millions died. Yeah, the spread of conspiration nonsense is bad, something being a reaction to something else explains it, it doesn't justify it.

your national comrades have rebelled for far less.

They riot and protest for a lot of stuff. With all of the French obsession with what's organic and natural (I love José Bové as well), yeah I'm happy at least that there wasn't as many who started talking of microchips in vaccines.

I mean, … that's a funny reason why I also wonder if I'm still a leftist as I grow older. The reverse works as well, a lot of "conservatives" conserve nothing anymore. They're incapable of the administrative skills for basic maintenance, which is part of conservatism lest anyone forget.

I like to rag on Texas's inability to fix their power-grid, but willingness to fight in some culture-war for a reason. They cry despotism, but were more than happy to receive $60.6 million from the federal government to bolster the state's power grid under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. In terms of foreign politics. I also think it's more than fair to comment on American Internal politics, since the American Right did more than that, they meddled or were hostile in their stint in power. You simply can't work with them on the political arena, despite any claims otherwise, I don't trust them in not aligning with Russia.

You have your regular competent right, and on the fringes a bunch of con-man or worse.
There's the issue of hypocrisy, with the little religious revival as exemplified by the Book ban, I have no trust that this about freedom, it's an attempt for a political power-grab with no respect of norms. The Taliban were also revolutionary.

And I'll probably get downvoted as well. We can compare the final scores.

January 6th 2021 was a good thing, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't.

Hey, the "Left" didn't force you to pretend. It's the "Right", the attempts to play it down, to disavow it as it was actually "antifa", all of that. To everyone else, it was transparently a botched coup.

To talk about something which is less contentious:

That he initially said masking wouldn't prevent the spread because he wanted to make sure that the public wouldn't go out and buy these masks – so that they can be preserved for the medical staff, you think that was ethical? The right thing to do? And why exactly did we have such a low amount of N95 high quality masks unavailable for medical profession? Because neither the Trump, nor the Obama administration restocked them after the 2014 bird-flu outbreak. Is it ethical or moral or right, in your view, to risk the lives of tens if not hundreds of millions of people to protect the political class that has absolutely failed in doing the very basics of restocking these masks despite mountains of medical professionals saying that this is a serious problem if there would ever be a pandemic?

No, it's not ethical at all and it is the government's fault that trust in them collapsed. Incompetence and short-term thinking was abound.

However, I also remember that there were people who refused to mask themselves because they say they couldn't breathe, or who knows what else. What I'm trying to say is, be aware of jumping extremes I guess. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the tenor of some the discussions is worrying.

Maintain awareness one of self is important, a lot of people in different countries are losing their minds.

Roundups of others

@Greyblades

Well no propaganda network will save them [Tories] next election, there is no issue on the cards they could put forward that wont be slapped down with "who's been in charge for the last 14 years?"

We'll see, I wonder what the Tories will use. I don't foresee any attempts to go "religious revival" going that well for them in the UK, so that's one strategy out. So far Rishi Sunak is going after environmental pledges, at the same time that a bunch of swimmers caught Cholera because he and the Tories have been pumping untreated shit into the sea.

Fury as right-wing Tories call for vote on ripping up green pledges

As scapegoats go, that's pretty weak.

Climate Change

On climate change specifically, I'm not particularly interested in getting into a debate about this with anyone, because:

1) Bush Era Flashbacks: I don't particularly believe in any notions of progressives having taken over everything, and any notion of anthropogenic climate change being an oppressive academic monolithic is not credible, because I still remember how Bush, his cronies and his rich buddies slandered any environmental action.

They still do, they got away with it. Any accusations leveled towards climate action feels like projection to me, because of that.

2) Everyone's on their own: At this stage in time, with global action now limited and the Kyoto Protocol down (looks like Annex II have made sure they won't get funds from the Annex I countries) and environmental action now relegated to blocks of different countries, individual countries or even regions doing their own thing (NY's NYSERDA for example), we really don't have time to hold someone's hand anymore.

Swiss Re is a good source of information, because they're in insurance. That's what it all comes down to in the end, we're getting to the point where it'll cost people.

@No!!

That image is particularly bad because Prager U is approved for school-rooms in Florida, the same ones who were most draconian about removing others sources and threatening teachers with felonies if they don't follow guidelines.

It's pure meddling in education, in fact, the prior accusations feels like an accusation. Accusing your own opponent of breaking norms is another way to justify oneself in breaking norms.

Context should indeed be applied and the behavior of the time, but yes morals should be applied to it

Morals are a part of historical context.

ivermectin isn't effective against viruses, it's that simple ! It's against parasites.

I mean, it's probably not, but if there's enough call for it, doing some degree of investigation is warranted. Biochemistry is complicated, and sometimes unexpected things are found.

Something to keep in mind, though, is that ivermectin is off patent, and thus, any company with the means to produce it can sell it.

It's pure meddling in education, in fact, the prior accusations feels like an accusation. Accusing your own opponent of breaking norms is another way to justify oneself in breaking norms.

I mean, there were documented cases of (for example) communist teachers trying to indoctrinate their students. There were probably rather few in Florida, but it's not like it's been made up from whole cloth. Just subject to some exaggeration.

I do get what you're trying to get at, though, and I have seen this tactic be employed in American politics.

Though I personally (and I admit this is my own personal biases) I dislike people MORE when they "fit" really well in society so the fact in his time Slavery was socially accepted so he was lauded as a hero and he had no reason to think he was doing anything wrong…makes me hate Columbus a lot MORE.

Though I will admit that is kind of a me thing but yeah

We'll see, I wonder what the Tories will use. I don't foresee any attempts to go "religious revival" going that well for them in the UK, so that's one strategy out.

If there is a religious revival in Britain it won't be from the CoE or Catholicism. It will more likely be a reenactment of the India Pakistan wars on England's paved and tar-macked land. Our street gangs have already started one low key.

I was only being partly facetious when I called the Archbishop of Canterbury a communist, same applies to the Pope. Christianity is little more than just another progressive skinsuit in Britain. The idea of a fire and brimstone, crusader spirit revival is a fucking laughable prospect and any lesser Resurrection absolutely will not be coming from the top down.

@No!!

Eh, it's easy to write off the instinct to be suspicious as just being a hipster, but that Columbus wasn't reviled, but lauded for his ruthlessness is unfair.

As for "fitting in" too well, I think anyone who's too perfect starts to provoke an uncanny valley effect.

@Greyblades

If there is a religious revival in Britain it won't be from the CoE or Catholicism. It will more likely be a reenactment of the India Pakistan wars on England's paved and tar-macked land. Our street gangs have already started one low key.

I was only being partly facetious when I called the Archbishop of Canterbury a communist, same applies to the Pope. Christianity is little more than just another progressive skinsuit in Britain. The idea of a fire and brimstone, crusader spirit revival is a fucking laughable prospect and any lesser Resurrection absolutely will not be coming from the top down.

Personally, I don't think you should want this "crusader spirit", last time that was mentioned was during the Iraq War. Nor should one bemoan the lack of zealousness, I've always thought the capacity to stay cool-headed was a strength of Britain compared to the chaos caused by France's, Spain's and Germany's own wars of religion. (Or maybe I don't know enough about British History).

Hindu & Islamic extremism is hurting both of those respective countries, it should be a sign that it's something that universally rots a country. In comparison to France which had over a thousand people join ISIS, the UK has dealt with the situation better.

We dont have any spirit religious or otherwise and the absence of it is proving worse than any of the spirits you could ascribe to the nation in it's history.

4-800 britons estimate joined ISIS. IIRC most were second and third generation immigrants, first generations tended to actualy have an idea of how terminally stupid a thing it was.

'Course this was back when there were some filtering process and exclusivity, the immigrants viewed getting in as some sort of meritorious achievment to be here.

Shamima Begum was the most noteworthy, she tried and is still trying to get back in but in a unique moment of sanity the Tories didnt let someone in, and even more uniquely the courts didnt cuck out. Being a member of the Islamic morality police is apparantly the line.

Our main wars of religion was the Civil war, Cromwell etc. Before that we had a whole "burn the heretic" back and forth under the tudors, they all did it but the worst was under Mary I who was the older catholic daughter of Henry VIII and spent her reign trying to undo her father and brother's schism with the pope. With pyres, brands, wheels, inquisitors, uncomfy chairs and all the other medieval implements of persuasion at the disposal of a 1500s monarch.

She earned the sobrequet "Bloody" Mary with much gusto.

She married the king of Spain and would likely have succeeded in the return to rome if she didnt have the same problem as her mother and 4 stepmothers; she was infertile. The horror of her reign was likely heightened by a spiralling depression caused by her phantom pregnancy and subsequent abandonment by her husband.

The memory of Bloody Mary and fear of repeat is why fending off the Spanish Armada (one of the reasons for invading was to press the king of spain's claim to his widow's crown) became a national cornerstone and why the English had so little tolerance for the Stuarts flirting with Catholicism.

@Gilan.
Conservatives don't conserve anything because conservatives aren't creators.
The dirty, filthy, hilarious irony is that conservatives preserve the liberal culture of yester-year as something to maintain, just for one more day.
Hence why the NRx critique of modern conservatism as fake has merit.

Conservatism, as a movement needs to deeply understand what exactly they are preserving and why.

The answer lies in arts. Specifically, pre-WW1 and WW2 arts.
They need to understand why it needs to be preserved. And to do that they need to understand the deep, deep trauma that WW1 and WW2 had on the psyche of the art world at large.

This is a personal opinion. But the post WW2 art world is a desert with a handful of oasis that truly capture the realities of the world they inhabit.

Conservatives need to acknowledge and understand why they need to preserve certain avant-garde and deeply profound works of culture, that it isn't about preserving the old, but instead finding a deeper meaning in the old that holds true today.

I often find conservatives, instinctually find profound meaning in culture that is created by progressives. But it must be grounded in something deeper than the material.

Ultimately, deep down, the conservative seeks to preserve the metaphysical. They just don't have the language to express it.

One needs to look at the PFP of modern NRx types on the twitter, with statues of various Roman emperors, statues etc…all created during the late renaissance period which sought to re-interpret the "classic" styles. How ironic is it that the ancients didn't leave white marbled statues, but gaudy painted ones, that we would find clownish. It was the avant-garde, the revolutionary re-interpretation of the past that gave us the modern view of what "classical" sculptures look like. These are the people that would look at paintings by Caravaggio and talk about how profound and meaningful, and how it must be preserved as Western canon, and frame it under "conservatism"…disregarding the fact that Caravaggio was a bi-sexual degenerate who if existed today would be condemned with the highest of passions.

My GOD I wish more people delved into Art History.
Michael Malice is absolutely right when he says Conservatism is Progressivism driving the speed limit.

I don't like that saying; it implies the conservatives all like the idea of the end result and just want to get there at thier own pace. I think we are united in a dismay that progress didn't end where it should have.

ConservatIves are progs who wanted to get off at an earlier stop but we're force back into thier seat and are getting alarmed at finding the bus drove into the ghetto.

"But we're force back into thier seat"

Thank you phone autodcorrect, very cool.

@Chewybunny & Greyblades

We've taken a hard turn from whether Conservatives can even call themselves that to their relation to art, but fine, that's interesting.. To put a bow on the original subject, considering moves on abortion and book bans and homosexuality, a lot of modern "conservatism" seems more reactionary more than anything else.

Art appreciating varies beyond political label. Especially because what does "appreciation" even mean?

There's "patriots" who can wave a flag, but can't cite a single cultural war as there are people who have a deep knowledge of their own culture. Is it understanding? There are people who have never experienced anything more complex than a social media post as well as those who find valuable new media. People have always said the next form of entertainment rots minds.

In terms of liking what's "old" I think it's a case of tastes ossifying with time (nostalgia has a way to tint perception) as well as what's good being what's remembered across the ages, so there's such a thing as some themes being timeless.

To take the example of Roman statues, the misunderstanding and repurposing of their aesthetic is behind the "faux classical" works that you find in places like Italy, actually has value because it tells you something about Italians. Each attempt to copy the "neo-rome" style to as far as the US tells you more about the person doing the copying.

This applies to the Romans too, their statues were more real to life than Greece's idealized statues. Repetition is a form of flattery, and it's when you have bizarre Galapagos still evolution's of a base concept that it gets very interesting.

As for art going from "scandalous" to "respectable" impressionnisme for instance, the lives of those artists were quite bohemian and scandalous and they were turning upside down centuries of convention, but now you can find them in stuffy galeries next to what they were trying to change.

I had a longer response, I think the forum ate it. Well, whatever.

In short the problem is that everyone is out for their own pet goal and it can get nebulous. Especially when you have people with different opinions on the "tracks" of progressive activism (men and women, race, education, equality, sexuality, sex in general etc…).

Our prior exchange on religion and/or immigration can also show the differences there. I don't like Islamists and consider them dangerous with what happened with people joining ISIS, but I'm not going to accept the undercurrent (or in same cases) blatant racist reasons given. Is anti-theism progressive? There is a religious left who's pro-life.

In the original I also gave some other examples of debate, including possible future examples of AI and cloning. Society can "regress" or "advance" for whichever definition of the word you want, but it always changes.

I don't know what was the stop you would have wanted for things to stop at, but I'd wager it'd be difficult to get everyone to agree. That's the issue, nostalgia also has a way to warp what we consider an ideal time.