Benevolent fascism

[The_Walrus]

You sound like a corny advertisement.

you sound like self-aggrandising elitist clown.

 

[infoterror]

So the only 'universally accepted' way for measuring intelligence is more accurate in measuring its own standards than other tests... therefore it is accurate. No. Unless you can get inside someone's head, think what they think, and feel what they feel, you can't really tell how much 'smarter' a 150 is from a 100. A person with an IQ of 150 would certainly suggest that one spend their time educating a society, and helping it become this ' more intelligent ' target, rather than try to categorize it with tests.

And when they're outbred by idiots who don't listen, what prevails? Stupidity.

You don't need to get in their heads to find out every little detail of what manga they like, what their favorite car is, how they like to mix their black and tans. Give me a break. We're talking intelligence potential, not moral judgment on their hipster-worthiness.

 

[cryosteel]

I am making a practical decision which is that a smarter society is needed. I do not care about moral standing, as morality is a farce.

Most people are not prepared to consider pragmatic solutions because they are trained to first evaluate the human morality of all proposals. In other words, your available methods will be dismissed as inhumane, keeping the goal unreachable.

Two paths are available:

1) Continue pragmatic discussion without wasting any time on moral reactions
2) Disseminate abstract post-moral rather than tangible pragmatic discussions

 

[Seditious]

Two paths are available:

1) Continue pragmatic discussion without wasting any time on moral reactions
2) Disseminate abstract post-moral rather than tangible pragmatic discussions

generally the only chance you'd get to do 2) is through pragmatic discussions when people raise moral objections. I mean how many people do you know of who chat about morality in terms of hypothetical imperatives and duties and virtues and scripture instead of in terms of abortion and gun laws and the tactics of modern war...

 

[TalesOfTerror]

"All people under 120 IQ points are shot" results in the death of 90% of the population.
Systems fail.
Country ceases to exist.
Press replay for new game.

 

[cryosteel]

We righteous and correct moderns are too self-assured to evaluate our own values. Since we have long lost sight of our values and no longer maintain them, they have become corrupted. Maybe duties, imperatives and virues need to come back into fashion before post-moral thinking is generally accepted. Secular humanism and materialism stand in the way.

 

[cryosteel]

"All people under 120 IQ points are shot" results in the death of 90% of the population.
Systems fail.
Country ceases to exist.
Press replay for new game.

That is part of the larger goal. Crowded, destructive business-as-usual modernity would end, making room for a better replacement system designed by survivors who hopefully have that minimum 120+. Valuable bonus: our ecosystems would be relieved of 90% of the pressure imposed on them, leading to life's recovery globally.

 

[Scourge of God]

That is part of the larger goal. Crowded, destructive business-as-usual modernity would end, making room for a better replacement system designed by survivors who hopefully have that minimum 120+. Valuable bonus: our ecosystems would be relieved of 90% of the pressure imposed on them, leading to life's recovery globally.

Crowdist thinking is a problem of socialization, not of intelligence. With some notable exceptions, the upper echelons of leadership in most Western nations are made up of people with quite high IQ's. By the same token, many of the greatest enemies of modernity have hardly been geniuses, but they brought dedication and discipline to their cause, and were more successful for it. Compare the achievements of Adolf Hitler to the achievements of the Thule Society, and tell me who accomplished more...

 

[Nile577]

How can you treat people like technological products? sick technological fatalism, the lot of it.

Very agreed.

Setting aside the entirely inappropriate aims and usage of 'IQ tests' to 'fix' the quality of a being, and setting aside the important observation that man's Being is ontological, not biological - a horse, for example, could Be 'man' if it were to engage with language and thought in the way we do - I'd like to focus on the violence that both fascistic and modern thought processes do to the world.

The overwhelming error of fascism is twofold. In both 'diagnosis' and 'solution' it engages in crassly disposive thought mechanisms. The abandonment of Being, the reliance on productionist 'solutions' and the disclosure of beings as being-solely-for-resource are in themselves the epitome of the modernity fascism wishes to 'overcome.' What is ownmost to Being remains lost. We are in the age of the machine because we think mechanically. To dispose of people, as resource, in deathcamps is an equally severe crime as harnessing a river solely as a means to power a dam, or clearing rainforest to dispose of the land as nothing but an industrial resource to grow crops. (Later note: just to be clear, the crime is from the perspective of an ethics of Being. Morally, of course and without saying, there is absolutely no equivocation between hydroelectric dams and the atrocities of the holocaust. As Young notes, technology is not a 'genus' that links the essence of each but rather a compelling disclosure. The crimes have their origins in the same nihilistic source but are obviously not of a morally equivalent kind).

Even organisations like Greepeace are infested with this same illness of thought. The 'ownmost' of the forests they seek to protect is lost. All that they fight for is the forest as a commodity: as a place to produce oxygen, a place to relax, a place for leisure, a resource for animals.

The violence of this thought breaks off our paradigm of disposure as 'reality' and veils us from the mystical worlding of the world. The World is no longer a bud, rooted in the Earth and bringing forth the ineffable. It is a concrete land of rational, technological fascism, where both styrofoam cups and sub 120 people are use-once-and-throw-away commodities.

 

[Scourge of God]

Very agreed.

The overwhelming error of fascism is twofold. In both 'diagnosis' and 'solution' it engages in crassly disposive thought mechanisms. The abandonment of Being, the reliance on productionist 'solutions' and the disclosure of beings as being-solely-for-resource are in themselves the epitome of the modernity fascism wishes to 'overcome.' What is ownmost to Being remains lost. We are in the age of the machine because we think mechanically. To dispose of people, as resource, in deathcamps is an equally severe crime as harnessing a river solely as a means to power a dam, or clearing rainforest to dispose of the land as nothing but an industrial resource to grow crops.

Even organisations like Greepeace are infested with this same illness of thought. The 'ownmost' of the forests they seek to protect is lost. All that they fight for is the forest as a commodity: as a place to produce oxygen, a place to relax, a place for leisure, a resource for animals.

The violence of this thought breaks off our paradigm of disposure as 'reality' and veils us from the mystical worlding of the world. The World is no longer a bud, rooted in the Earth and bringing forth the ineffable. It is a concrete land of rational, technological fascism, where both styrofoam cups and sub 120 people are use-once-and-throw-away commodities.

There's no doubt (in my mind at least) that fascsism, especially of the vulgar variety promoted here is a symptom of the modern disease, albeit one that at least aspires to something greater. My sense, however, is that anyone who demands an organic, non-mechanistic approach to social organization is ultimately asking for something that does not, has never and cannot exist. As appealing as the idea is, we're not really spiritual Beings destined for some metaphysical ideal - we're animals hardwired for one thing and one thing only: survival. And survival is rooted not in ideal or 'Being,' but function and utility. In this sense, fascism bows to the reality while pledging its allegiance to the fantasy (society as 'organic' unit). Human societies aren't and never have been organic entities with a sort of metaphorical cellular arrangement wherein people fit 'naturally' into a place among the whole. They are always ad hoc arrangements where function and utility, as dictated by the instinct to survive and the desire to perpetuate the social matrix, are the driving force.

 

[Nile577]

My sense, however, is that anyone who demands an organic, non-mechanistic approach to social organization is ultimately asking for something that does not, has never and cannot exist. As appealing as the idea is, we're not really spiritual Beings destined for some metaphysical ideal - we're animals hardwired for one thing and one thing only: survival. And survival is rooted not in ideal or 'Being,' but function and utility.

I don't disagree that technological thought has been a factor of life for as long as man has existed. Man 'works' in every act he does - even when conventionally 'at rest' - by using the world as utility, as tools. However, the crucial difference of modernity is that things are revealed as NOTHING BUT that commodity. The Greek word 'techne,' for example, had a far wider and subtler meaning that what technology implies today. It spoke of the act of a 'bringing forth (from Being),' incorporating both mechanical and artistic workings.

Productionist metaphysics has cut off man from Being. The 'thinging of a thing' is no longer EVER a sacred act of wonder, as the Greeks often saw it, bringing forth the bud of Being into the world. It is simply what might strangely be called 'metaphysical reality' and commodity.

The greatest cultural thought I know recognises that in Being-in-the-world man is almost always 'at work,' but allows, crucially, for him to take what might be called 'sacred holidays,' in which what is ownmost to Being shows up in the clearing (as in a forest) of his consciousness. During such holidays, the horizon of beings is no longer governed by commodity but, for want of a better word, true, non-theistic 'Divinty.' In my view, rather than 'overcoming' modernity, if we wish to liberate ourselves from its thought processes, from metaphysics, we must learn the art of taking holidays.

 

[speed]

Very agreed.

Setting aside the entirely inappropriate aims and usage of 'IQ tests' to 'fix' the quality of a being, and setting aside the important observation that man's Being is ontological, not biological - a horse, for example, could Be 'man' if it were to engage with language and thought in the way we do - I'd like to focus on the violence that both fascistic and modern thought processes do to the world.

The overwhelming error of fascism is twofold. In both 'diagnosis' and 'solution' it engages in crassly disposive thought mechanisms. The abandonment of Being, the reliance on productionist 'solutions' and the disclosure of beings as being-solely-for-resource are in themselves the epitome of the modernity fascism wishes to 'overcome.' What is ownmost to Being remains lost. We are in the age of the machine because we think mechanically. To dispose of people, as resource, in deathcamps is an equally severe crime as harnessing a river solely as a means to power a dam, or clearing rainforest to dispose of the land as nothing but an industrial resource to grow crops.

Even organisations like Greepeace are infested with this same illness of thought. The 'ownmost' of the forests they seek to protect is lost. All that they fight for is the forest as a commodity: as a place to produce oxygen, a place to relax, a place for leisure, a resource for animals.

The violence of this thought breaks off our paradigm of disposure as 'reality' and veils us from the mystical worlding of the world. The World is no longer a bud, rooted in the Earth and bringing forth the ineffable. It is a concrete land of rational, technological fascism, where both styrofoam cups and sub 120 people are use-once-and-throw-away commodities.

Excellent post. However, isnt your example a bit dated? I mean, we've passed from the mechanical age and thought you described, to a digital and information age where we think in no concrete terms about anything, or give nothing any concrete worth--everything is sort of unreal; hyperreal perhaps. Blips of data on a mainframe.

 

[OldScratch]

Excellent post. However, isnt your example a bit dated? I mean, we've passed from the mechanical age and thought you described, to a digital and information age where we think in no concrete terms about anything, or give nothing any concrete worth--everything is sort of unreal; hyperreal perhaps. Blips of data on a mainframe.

Oddly enough, that is almost exactly what I was thinking - only in regards to Nile577's next post just above this one. For better or worse we are so far "beyond" idealistic being, that all I can really relate to is the utility and function that Scourge mentioned earlier. Perhaps that is my intellectual downfall...

 

[speed]

Oddly enough, that is almost exactly what I was thinking - only in regards to Nile577's next post just above this one. For better or worse we are so far "beyond" idealistic being, that all I can really relate to is the utility and function that Scourge mentioned earlier. Perhaps that is my intellectual downfall...

And mine as well.

 

[Nile577]

Excellent post. However, isnt your example a bit dated? I mean, we've passed from the mechanical age and thought you described, to a digital and information age where we think in no concrete terms about anything, or give nothing any concrete worth--everything is sort of unreal; hyperreal perhaps. Blips of data on a mainframe.

A good post. Baudrillard writes very perceptively on the 'hyperreal.' Thinking about it now, I am reminded of his much celebrated trick of claiming that the Iraq war never happened!

I disagree with your observation though. I don't think we've moved away from enframing, technological thought (that which reveals being as nothing but commodity) at all. The Gestell of our era is not reflected in the ‘quiddity’ of 'objective' material things, but in their disclosed Being. That is, technology is way of thinking, not of material production. Hence, while we have perhaps moved on, in the West, from the industrial era, we are still very much 'technological' in our thought, and beings tend to be being-nothing-but-commodity.

The Internet seems to me the ultimate commodity. It is nothing but a resource for business, information, books, cds, dvds, theatre tickets, game tickets, social life, sex, love, porn, intellectual stimulation, activism, hatred etc. There is almost nothing of the 'ownmost' of the web, and its 'worlding' is left forever nebulous by the disposive productionist metaphysics that gave it birth.

Heidegger called 'Gestell' Janus-faced because he realised that if we are able to recognise it - that great danger that it is - we become aware that being may be disclosed in other ways than resource-disposure, and so, in turn, we catch a glimpse of the ineffable, the mystical divinity of Being which shows up in the clearing of man's World. As Holderlin wrote, ‘where the danger is, grows the saving power also.’

 

[infoterror]

'Yes, let's kill my father, he only scored 119 but oh, we can leave my mother alive because she scored 121.'That's total anti-life insanity. How can you treat people like technological products?

I'm not; you are.

Technological products are equal, to be molded, and discrete in the mathematical sense. I'm arguing for a non-discrete humanity that is not disconnected from the boundary functions of its environs.

 

[infoterror]

The overwhelming error of fascism is twofold. In both 'diagnosis' and 'solution' it engages in crassly disposive thought mechanisms. The abandonment of Being, the reliance on productionist 'solutions' and the disclosure of beings as being-solely-for-resource are in themselves the epitome of the modernity fascism wishes to 'overcome.' What is ownmost to Being remains lost. We are in the age of the machine because we think mechanically. To dispose of people, as resource, in deathcamps is an equally severe crime as harnessing a river solely as a means to power a dam, or clearing rainforest to dispose of the land as nothing but an industrial resource to grow crops.

Fascism is struggle for an abstract ideal, thus embraces more what you accuse of it lacking than you do. It's one thing to pontificate from our comfy homes about experience and how important it is, and another to wake up sober and realize most are incapable of those thoughts -- and will do whatever they can to destroy them.

Being is at its height in fascism. Fascism is the science of eliminating tedium and heightening struggle, not for a closed-circuit existence but for an ideal transcending man. Those who do not see are most likely entrenched in a form of fear that dogs them to pursue even less-realistic solutions...

:zombie:

 

[infoterror]

I don't disagree that technological thought has been a factor of life for as long as man has existed.

The problem isn't technology, but technology in the hands of the incapable.

 

[kmik]

Fascism is struggle for an abstract ideal, thus embraces more what you accuse of it lacking than you do. It's one thing to pontificate from our comfy homes about experience and how important it is, and another to wake up sober and realize most are incapable of those thoughts -- and will do whatever they can to destroy them.

Being is at its height in fascism. Fascism is the science of eliminating tedium and heightening struggle, not for a closed-circuit existence but for an ideal transcending man. Those who do not see are most likely entrenched in a form of fear that dogs them to pursue even less-realistic solutions...

:zombie:

What abstract goals? Fascism merely treats the state as an individual and humans as its resources. What's the point in having a big centralized government and have a huge empire if the people do not benefit? The state is a means to an end, not an end in itself, it's merely a tool used by the people to achieve their own goals which they cannot on their own and ensure that society is safe and functioning.

By the way, who exactly defines those abstract goals? The king? What if the king happens to be a fucking moron? Or if his son is a fucking moron? The people's existence only serves some idiot's "abstract goals"? Doesn't sound very logical to me.

EDIT: I just noticed that I actually repeated what Nile said in broken English, sorry for that

 

[infoterror]

What abstract goals? Fascism merely treats the state as an individual and humans as its resources.

Nope, you misunderstand the organic state. You're interpreting it backward. The people are the state, but the state is the mechanism for finding out a rational common goal. The state serves the ideal, which includes the people, but is not limited to individuals or mechanisms (such as the state).

It takes most people a few years to understand this, upon having begun reading of how the Ancients did things.

The rest of human "solutions" are babble...