If Mort Divine ruled the world

[rms]

But nice dig

Not a dig, that's your position. And of course it won't end,you didn't give away your heritable wealth to poor people of color nor your admission to prestigious universities. You haven't done your due diligence of checking your privilege.

 

[Einherjar86]

Not a dig, that's your position.

You presume to know a lot about people's positions. The funny thing is you're usually wrong (on evolution, climate change, Mad Max movies... ).

And of course it won't end,you didn't give away your heritable wealth to poor people of color nor your admission to prestigious universities. You haven't done your due diligence of checking your privilege.

Why should I have to give up my position of privilege? Have I ever suggested that you should, or that anyone should for that matter--or that such an act would even be advantageous?

 

[rms]

Mother fucker I was lecturing you on climate change. And that God damn mad Max movie...

Is it or is it not your position that people contribute to white supremacy unless they are actively combatting it?

 

[Einherjar86]

Mother fucker I was lecturing you on climate change.

Sure.

Is it or is it not your position that people contribute to white supremacy unless they are actively combatting it?

Not white supremacy, no. You can find where I said that, if I did, and I'll take it back (I also am not sure what "actively combating" white supremacy means; I wouldn't say that you need to go to rallies or punch nazis to combat white supremacy). I would find it troubling though if someone sees a white supremacist march going by their window and thinks "not my business."

I'd say that we all contribute in multifarious and often indiscernible ways to deeply ingrained structures of racial disparity, but I don't think, nor have I ever thought, that all white men need to divest themselves of their privilege (nor do I think that I absolve myself of my contribution simply by writing about the problem). I believe in spending tax dollars to fund organizations and programs that offer assistance, but I don't see that as demanding that white people give up their privilege.

If the problems are historical and structural, as I believe they are, then the solutions need to be structural. This can be achieved without prohibiting white people from occupying positions of authority or prestige, or from earning decent money. It can also be achieved without forgiving black crimes, which for some reason people seem to think I advocate. When I question legal or political strategies that target crime, I'm not saying the crimes themselves are justifiable. I think there are ways to deal with urban violence without resorting to a dichotomy of "Leave it alone" versus "Arrest all African American drivers with broken tail lights."

 

[rms]

think this is the first time i've ever seen you use "racial disparity" rather than racism or white supremacy. not sure if ill bother looking back in time

 

[Dak]

I would find it troubling though if someone sees a white supremacist march going by their window and thinks "not my business."

My response to a WN march or a BLM march is "Not gonna fuck with stupid".

nor have I ever thought, that all white men need to divest themselves of their privilege

But I assume by this statement you do think all white men (does that extend to those "white persons" not in the US?) have privilege that's purely whiteness based, and outside of any internal correlations or cultural correlations which have no orthogonality with specific US minorities. They just don't need to divest themselves of it.

 

[Einherjar86]

My response to a WN march or a BLM march is "Not gonna fuck with stupid".

I know.

But I assume by this statement you do think all white men (does that extend to those "white persons" not in the US?) have privilege that's purely whiteness based, and outside of any internal correlations or cultural correlations which have no orthogonality with specific US minorities. They just don't need to divest themselves of it.

True. But I don't blame white people for their whiteness, and there's no way to divest ourselves of it (unless you want to paint yourself in blackface, in which case good luck).

Whiteness is a random effect of a chaotic universe, but even random effects accumulate value in human societies. Whiteness is valuable in Western society; but that doesn't mean there aren't whites who have less privilege than others, or blacks who enjoy more class privilege than poor whites. Saying that all whites enjoy racial privilege insinuates that all whites have it better off than all blacks, but that's not true and I know that.

 

[CiG]

You guys do it all the time. I don't think you're being malevolent.

I defend the alt-right?

 

[Dak]

I know.

And you find that problematic.

Saying that all whites enjoy racial privilege insinuates that all whites have it better off than all blacks, but that's not true and I know that.

So.........

 

[Einherjar86]

I defend the alt-right?

I believe you said something like "take a defensive approach to mockery of the alt-right." You definitely do that when you dismiss or mock leftist critiques of the alt-right. Again, I don't think that's malevolent in any way.

And you find that problematic.

I find it amusing.

So.........

So one individual white person having it worse off than one individual black person doesn't miraculously vanish the value of the former individual's white skin. If one person has a tablespoon of water and another person has a full glass, that doesn't somehow mean that one person has water and the other doesn't.

 

[CiG]

The transgender model said something more retarded than white privilege, she said that whites created the blueprint for racism, slavery and terrorism.

I believe you said something like "take a defensive approach to mockery of the alt-right." You definitely do that when you dismiss or mock leftist critiques of the alt-right. Again, I don't think that's malevolent in any way.

Give me an example? I despise the alt-right. I get defensive when some asshole leftist promotes vigilante violence against people simply for speech, because I'm philosophically liberal and not a cocksucker of communism and socialism where it's okay to simply violently remove the wrongthinkers.

You however specifically get defensive over the Antifa turds and not for any universal reasons that I can see, you surely don't defend violent opposition to speech as a philosophy for any other grouping of people.

 

[Einherjar86]

Give me an example? I despise the alt-right. I get defensive when some asshole leftist promotes vigilante violence against people simply for speech, because I'm philosophically liberal and not a cocksucker of communism and socialism where it's okay to simply violently remove the wrongthinkers.

I feel like I see most of your posts in this and related threads, and they're primarily directed against leftist rhetoric. You seem to dedicate more time to calling out leftists than the alt-right. That might be because you think that most media criticisms of the alt-right are misguided, but then that's not a neutral position; it's a political one. I believe you when you say you despise the alt-right as much as the antifa-left, but statistically you fall to a particular side.

Finally, Marxism is still a vastly misunderstood philosophy, largely because of social media. So every time I admit some fondness for Marxism, I lose argument points. Because addressing Marx's work seriously ~ stupidity.

You however specifically get defensive over the Antifa turds and not for any universal reasons that I can see, you surely don't defend violent opposition to speech as a philosophy for any other grouping of people.

I feel that my posts are in measured response to anti-left content that I see on the board. Yes, I'm a leftist, that is true; but I have explicitly said that I don't condone antifa violence. My "defenses" of them, if they can be called that, are responses to the kinds of arguments I see levied on this forum.

But now we're meta-critically commenting on our own posts, which is a dangerous practice.

 

[CiG]

I feel like I see most of your posts in this and related threads, and they're primarily directed against leftist rhetoric. You seem to dedicate more time to calling out leftists than the alt-right. That might be because you think that most media criticisms of the alt-right are misguided, but then that's not a neutral position; it's a political one. I believe you when you say you despise the alt-right as much as the antifa-left, but statistically you fall to a particular side.

Well right up until the Dodge Challenger of peace attack, it was overwhelmingly the far-left doing the most stupid shit. Before that rally, the alt-right were primarily a kind of intellectual Internet movement and to add to that, they (and Trump supporters more broadly) were often the victims of leftist violence.

This is like when you prefer to criticize Islam in the era of Islamic terrorism and then everybody just assumes you're a Christian, a Christian apologist or that you support Christianity.

Prefacing every opinion or criticism by saying all the other things you also oppose is obviously impractical and unreasonable.

Finally, Marxism is still a vastly misunderstood philosophy, largely because of social media. So every time I admit some fondness for Marxism, I lose argument points. Because addressing Marx's work seriously ~ stupidity.

It's as misunderstood as any other political ideology or theory and in some cases it is better understood than others. In fact, I think capitalism is more misunderstood given how mainstream it is and how linked to everyday life it is.

I feel that my posts are in measured response to anti-left content that I see on the board. Yes, I'm a leftist, that is true; but I have explicitly said that I don't condone antifa violence. My "defenses" of them, if they can be called that, are responses to the kinds of arguments I see levied on this forum.

But now we're meta-critically commenting on our own posts, which is a dangerous practice.

I have no idea why anybody would need to defend body-shaming or accusations of thuggery against Antifa. Especially when you can just watch the hours and hours of footage of Antifa on Youtube and see that they're hardly a force of physical prowess (they look like a bunch of Portland crust punk hipsters) and that they do indeed engage in thuggery. They attack women ffs.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well right up until the Dodge Challenger of peace attack, it was overwhelmingly the far-left doing the most stupid shit. Before that rally, the alt-right were primarily a kind of intellectual Internet movement and to add to that, they (and Trump supporters more broadly) were often the victims of leftist violence.

Why does criticism need to be restricted to physical violence?

This is like when you prefer to criticize Islam in the era of Islamic terrorism and then everybody just assumes you're a Christian, a Christian apologist or that you support Christianity.

Not exactly. I believe that you're not an alt-right apologist. I was simply commenting on post content, not on your personal beliefs.

Prefacing every opinion or criticism by saying all the other things you also oppose is obviously impractical and unreasonable.

Agreed--I've just admitted to not condoning leftist violence, and feel I shouldn't have to say that all the time.

It's as misunderstood as any other political ideology or theory and in some cases it is better understood than others. In fact, I think capitalism is more misunderstood given how mainstream it is and how linked to everyday life it is.

I don't think that's true, but I would agree that capitalism is widely misunderstood. Capitalism is at least experientially understood as a social form; but it's not a philosophy. It's a description of social organization.

Marxism is a philosophy that involves a form of social organization. Westerners have never experienced anything close to Marxism, and most of them haven't read any of Marx's writings.

I have no idea why anybody would need to defend body-shaming or accusations of thuggery against Antifa. Especially when you can just watch the hours and hours of footage of Antifa on Youtube and see that they're hardly a force of physical prowess (they look like a bunch of Portland crust punk hipsters) and that they do indeed engage in thuggery. They attack women ffs.

Again, my responses are typically directed at the kinds of arguments being made, which I usually find problematic in one way or another. It doesn't have to do with defending antifa, although it may come off as defensive, as you said.

To take an extreme analogy: someone could say that Hitler oversaw the execution of Jews because he's evil incarnate. I would have a problem with that argument, but that doesn't mean I'm defending Hitler.

 

[CiG]

Why does criticism need to be restricted to physical violence?

It doesn't. I'm just saying, before the alt-right physical violence, in my opinion the far-left were the ones doing the most amount of stupid shit. They still do the most amount of ridiculous shit.

Agreed--I've just admitted to not condoning leftist violence, and feel I shouldn't have to say that all the time.

I don't know that anybody here believes you ever did condone leftist violence, except maybe until you didn't come out against the whole punch a Nazi thing.

You're clearly more pacifistic than most on here, to me anyway.

I don't think that's true, but I would agree that capitalism is widely misunderstood. Capitalism is at least experientially understood as a social form; but it's not a philosophy. It's a description of social organization.

Marxism is a philosophy that involves a form of social organization. Westerners have never experienced anything close to Marxism, and most of them haven't read any of Marx's writings.

When people go around complaining about capitalism and they're actually complaining about corporatism, thereby putting themselves in league with pro-capitalists who also complain about corporatism, yeah I'd say it's vastly misunderstood lol especially in the west.

We can argue about how misunderstood it is relative to Marxism of course, you're probably correct.

To take an extreme analogy: someone could say that Hitler oversaw the execution of Jews because he's evil incarnate. I would have a problem with that argument, but that doesn't mean I'm defending Hitler.

Yeah but that wouldn't be based on a difference of the interpretation of facts about Hitler and the Nazi regime, that would just be because you don't believe in the concepts of good and evil, yes?

 

[Einherjar86]

When people go around complaining about capitalism and they're actually complaining about corporatism, thereby putting themselves in league with pro-capitalists who also complain about corporatism, yeah I'd say it's vastly misunderstood lol especially in the west.

That's a misunderstanding that gets at a deeper truth, which is that capitalism establishes the ideological basis for corporatism. To me, complaining about corporatism while championing capitalism is kind of like praising the invention of the automobile and then saying how much you hate traffic jams. I don't enjoy being stuck in traffic, but the only way to end congestion completely is to get rid of all the cars.

Corporatism and protectionism are inevitable offshoots of a society that revolves around the virtue of capital accumulation. If capital is important, then wealthy centers of capital will pay to ensure that their capital is protected. That's capitalism at work, simply at the level of organizations rather than individuals; there's no difference in the basic function (it's a transaction--money for services). Liberal corporatism is part and parcel of capitalist development at this point in Western history. If there was no federal government to lobby, another centralized protectionist agency would arise in its place, and possibly one far less amenable to social/media oversight and regulation.

The corporatism we have in the West is not Marxist or communist in nature at all, but is definitively capitalist. And honestly, it's not something I have a problem with, aside from the inevitable side effects (which I believe can be mitigated). Although I don't like the term, I'd consider myself a structural functionalist of the post-Parsons variety, meaning I tend to see complexity as a good thing. Capitalism between organizations is an important component in technological, scientific, and intellectual development; and while I don't discount the possibility of something like a practicable Marxism, I tend to see it as a method of critical analysis rather than a utopian program.

That's a long way of saying I agree that capitalism is misunderstood, but part of that misunderstanding is--I think--the attempt to distinguish capitalism from liberal corporatism.

Yeah but that wouldn't be based on a difference of the interpretation of facts about Hitler and the Nazi regime, that would just be because you don't believe in the concepts of good and evil, yes?

Correct--that's my point. My problem often has to do with the method of argument, not with the facts of what Hitler did.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Trump is Thor:

 

[Dak]

Because Trump wants Mar a Lago messed up.

 

[CiG]

That's a long way of saying I agree that capitalism is misunderstood, but part of that misunderstanding is--I think--the attempt to distinguish capitalism from liberal corporatism.

That was a very convoluted response. I understand that corporatism is a type of capitalism, but the pro-capitalists (libertarians, anarcho-capitalists and so on) don't mean that they support all capitalist off-shoots but rather a truly free market form of capitalism.

The problem I see is that people on one side blame everything on capitalism and call every single economic mode that generates capital; capitalism.

But of course, true communism or true socialism has never been tried. They never grant that same view to capitalism.

 

[Einherjar86]

That was a very convoluted response. I understand that corporatism is a type of capitalism, but the pro-capitalists (libertarians, anarcho-capitalists and so on) don't mean that they support all capitalist off-shoots but rather a truly free market form of capitalism.

"True" free markets don't exist. That's the grand illusion.

True free markets would be analogous to absolute free societal interaction--meaning people do whatever they want, and their actions conform to whatever they find to be socially acceptable. Of course, this isn't how our society works, nor should it be.

Even hypothetically speaking, as soon as you have free markets you will have platforms for political intervention. Free markets mean a demand for protectionism, and that's exactly what corporatism offers. If markets are free, then you'll have a space for governmental (or mercenary) organizations to emerge. Corporatism is the free market extended to complex systems, which means it appears un-free at the individual level. It's all about scale.

Defining capitalism as free markets is all well and good, but it's beholden to an eighteenth-century vision of individual entrepreneurship and innovation that simply isn't tenable anymore.

But of course, true communism or true socialism has never been tried. They never grant that same view to capitalism.

Sure "they" do!

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quot...ns-on-global-democratic-uprisings-and-the-new

First of all, we've never had capitalism, so it can't end. We have some variety of state capitalism. If you fly on an airplane, you're basically flying in a modified bomber. If you buy drugs, the basic research was done under public funding and support. The high-tech system is permeated with internal controls, government subsidies. And if you look at what are supposed to be the growing alternatives, China is another form of state capitalism...

That's Noam Chomsky.