horseshoe theory

[freepcrusher]

does anyone find there to be kind of a horseshoe theory between the kind of NPC wings of liberal/conservatives and the more outside the box conservatives/liberals? Like I've always been interested in political cranks. I've always found a Jones/Corsi/Paul type conservative/libertarian much more interesting to talk to than a Hillsdale/FirstThings/Powerline type of conservative. I wrote this on a post a while back that I think that same divide existed in the john birch society. Some of them were the former while some the latter. Likewise I'm not a fan of the Scott Lemieux, David Atkins, Jill Filipovic type of oversocialized lefty but I do like the Sanders/Dore/Redscare type of left.

You can even see the same thing among the gun community. Like I'm not a fan of the NPC gun types who see it as some sort of virtue signaling device the same way that lefties view an electric car (Katie Pavlich or Katelyn Bennett seem like an avatar for this). Meanwhile some guy my dad works with is a gun guy but he's much more of a "secret cabal of billionaire occult pedophiles are planning to enslave us" type of guy. Again - a lot more interesting to listen to - even if you take what he says with a giant grain of salt.

[Alben Barkley]

My preferences are pretty much the exact opposite of yours. I find “cranks” to be annoying at best, actively detrimental to society at worst. Most of them are not particularly interesting, they are either just absolute idiots or Dunning-Kruger cases who think they are smarter than everybody else when in reality they are far from it. I don’t think either group is pleasant or stimulating to talk to at all. If you do for some reason, maybe try visiting an insane asylum some time. You’ll find hours of great conversation.

By the way, unironically calling people “NPCs” (apparently just for being relatively sane and normal) is f—king weird and dehumanizing.

[PSOL]

Huh, this is one of the worst threads of the year.

[Ferguson97]

what the hell are you talking about

[pbrower2a]

A ring is more reliable in uniting the extremists -- the people ambiguous on whether they are communists of fascists because they have the worst features of both. Think of the Strasser brothers in Germany who wanted the emphasis on socialism or of National Bolsheviks. The extremists are similar in their regimentation, terror, brutality, and contempt for democratic norms. North Korea is a prime example.

Take Laurence Britt's infamous list of 14 warning signs of fascism, and some hyper-Red regimes fit well. 

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Good post, I agree for the most part. I think you can break people down into two camps:

Camp 1: The system is inherently broken, we need to do something about people in power. Current institutions cannot be reformed, and must be either replaced or eliminated.

Camp 2: The system is working mostly as intended, we can't afford to make any non-incremental change. Current institutions must be protected, we can maybe reform them somewhat.

I personally think camp 2 is a pretty privileged group, whether on the right or left. People in camp 1 tend to have more skin in the game, and are more passionate about politics (beyond just putting their boots on the necks of people who can't afford to ride out the status quo).

I agree with the two camps you roughly divide people into, but I think you're off by 180 degrees on where the privilege and skin-in-the-game lies. The people I see in Camp 2 are the people who have families, institutions they care about, and real concern about the future. Where the people in Camp 1 are either so privileged that they can't imagine that tearing down our society could hurt them personally, or don't think they have anything to lose either due to lack of empathy and social ties. or very real desperate financial circumstances.

I feel for that last group the most. There are far too many of our fellow citizens and fellow human beings who are suffering, and who don't need to be. But I don't think tearing everything down makes it better for them, and I'm skeptical that it would be a just trade even if it did. What I think Camp 1 gets you in practice is someone like Donald Trump (on the right or from the left, it doesn't really matter) tweeting idiocy while hundreds of thousands of people die and the rich get richer, faster while our civilization speeds towards its destruction.

I guess that all puts me in Camp 2, even though I think I'm pretty far left on a lot of issues, and I do think are current systems are badly broken. To use an analogy, yeah, our house is falling apart and we're not able to fix it. We need to build a new house. And while I don't trust the current landlord to rebuild, I trust the pyromaniacs who want to burn it down with people still inside even less. The least-bad solution I can see is the Fabian one: try to keep things working (and reforming) as best we can, and hope that circumstances change to allow us to make things better in ways we can't right now. I fear we're headed for The Jackpot or worse, but I'm not aware of any better, workable solutions.

[freepcrusher]

I agree with the two camps you roughly divide people into, but I think you're off by 180 degrees on where the privilege and skin-in-the-game lies. The people I see in Camp 2 are the people who have families, institutions they care about, and real concern about the future. Where the people in Camp 1 are either so privileged that they can't imagine that tearing down our society could hurt them personally, or don't think they have anything to lose either due to lack of empathy and social ties. or very real desperate financial circumstances.

I feel for that last group the most. There are far too many of our fellow citizens and fellow human beings who are suffering, and who don't need to be. But I don't think tearing everything down makes it better for them, and I'm skeptical that it would be a just trade even if it did. What I think Camp 1 gets you in practice is someone like Donald Trump (on the right or from the left, it doesn't really matter) tweeting idiocy while hundreds of thousands of people die and the rich get richer, faster while our civilization speeds towards its destruction.

I guess that all puts me in Camp 2, even though I think I'm pretty far left on a lot of issues, and I do think are current systems are badly broken. To use an analogy, yeah, our house is falling apart and we're not able to fix it. We need to build a new house. And while I don't trust the current landlord to rebuild, I trust the pyromaniacs who want to burn it down with people still inside even less. The least-bad solution I can see is the Fabian one: try to keep things working (and reforming) as best we can, and hope that circumstances change to allow us to make things better in ways we can't right now. I fear we're headed for The Jackpot or worse, but I'm not aware of any better, workable solutions.

Well the problem is that the people who have skin in the game tend to be the most clueless about things. Like the Claremont/FirstThings/Powerline example I mentioned - there's a sort of weaselness to them I don't like. All the word salad that acts as a sort of word/name bingo (Chesterton, James Burnham, Administrative State, Churchill, Aristotle, CS Lewis, Machiavelli). There's a feeling of evasiveness in the way they talk. I'd much rather talk to the 25-34 year old memesmith enmeshed in chan culture. The leftwing equivalent I mentioned aren't as evasive but there's no insight. Like what am I supposed to take out of this article other than that these people want an army of entitled/hysterical midwits: https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/49/r-i-p-liberal-contrarianism/.

Put it another way - who do you trust in running society - the causeheads or the non-causeheads.

[Diabolical Materialism]

A ring is more reliable in uniting the extremists -- the people ambiguous on whether they are communists of fascists because they have the worst features of both. Think of the Strasser brothers in Germany who wanted the emphasis on socialism or of National Bolsheviks. The extremists are similar in their regimentation, terror, brutality, and contempt for democratic norms. North Korea is a prime example.

Take Laurence Britt's infamous list of 14 warning signs of fascism, and some hyper-Red regimes fit well. 

The Strassers weren't socialist in any meaningful sense. I know that they, as well as the SA, tend to be portrayed as some "left-wing" of the NSDAP, but their platforms bear little resemblance to the broad left-wing ideologies of the day in general, and certainly not to Marxism in the particular.

Germany Tomorrow or Structure of German Socialism is much closer to Mein Kampf than it is to Marx's Capital in it's analysis and agenda. The Strassers, although often co-opting Marxist rhetoric and terminology, are fundamentally anti-materialist in their worldview as demonstrated by their writings.

To be completely honest I know next to nothing about Dugin or the National Bolshevik movement in Russia, so I can't really comment on whether or not they represent a true synthesis of the far-right and far-left. But if they are anything like their counterparts in Germany, then the ideology is little more than a far-right bastardization of socialism with a thin veneer of Marxist terminology and aesthetics.

[If my soul was made of stone]

A ring is more reliable in uniting the extremists -- the people ambiguous on whether they are communists of fascists because they have the worst features of both. Think of the Strasser brothers in Germany who wanted the emphasis on socialism or of National Bolsheviks. The extremists are similar in their regimentation, terror, brutality, and contempt for democratic norms. North Korea is a prime example.

Take Laurence Britt's infamous list of 14 warning signs of fascism, and some hyper-Red regimes fit well. 

The Strassers weren't socialist in any meaningful sense. I know that they, as well as the SA, tend to be portrayed as some "left-wing" of the NSDAP, but their platforms bear little resemblance to the broad left-wing ideologies of the day in general, and certainly not to Marxism in the particular.

Germany Tomorrow or Structure of German Socialism is much closer to Mein Kampf than it is to Marx's Capital in it's analysis and agenda. The Strassers, although often co-opting Marxist rhetoric and terminology, are fundamentally anti-materialist in their worldview as demonstrated by their writings.

"It's the Jews' fault" isn't a very Marxist critique of capitalism, no.

[Diabolical Materialism]

A ring is more reliable in uniting the extremists -- the people ambiguous on whether they are communists of fascists because they have the worst features of both. Think of the Strasser brothers in Germany who wanted the emphasis on socialism or of National Bolsheviks. The extremists are similar in their regimentation, terror, brutality, and contempt for democratic norms. North Korea is a prime example.

Take Laurence Britt's infamous list of 14 warning signs of fascism, and some hyper-Red regimes fit well. 

The Strassers weren't socialist in any meaningful sense. I know that they, as well as the SA, tend to be portrayed as some "left-wing" of the NSDAP, but their platforms bear little resemblance to the broad left-wing ideologies of the day in general, and certainly not to Marxism in the particular.

Germany Tomorrow or Structure of German Socialism is much closer to Mein Kampf than it is to Marx's Capital in it's analysis and agenda. The Strassers, although often co-opting Marxist rhetoric and terminology, are fundamentally anti-materialist in their worldview as demonstrated by their writings.

"It's the Jews' fault" isn't a very Marxist critique of capitalism, no.

Exactly, and tossing in a few "bourgeois"s and "superstructure"s in your writing doesn't make your ideology Marxist.

[Person Man]

Good post, I agree for the most part. I think you can break people down into two camps:

Camp 1: The system is inherently broken, we need to do something about people in power. Current institutions cannot be reformed, and must be either replaced or eliminated.

Camp 2: The system is working mostly as intended, we can't afford to make any non-incremental change. Current institutions must be protected, we can maybe reform them somewhat.

I personally think camp 2 is a pretty privileged group, whether on the right or left. People in camp 1 tend to have more skin in the game, and are more passionate about politics (beyond just putting their boots on the necks of people who can't afford to ride out the status quo).

I agree with the two camps you roughly divide people into, but I think you're off by 180 degrees on where the privilege and skin-in-the-game lies. The people I see in Camp 2 are the people who have families, institutions they care about, and real concern about the future. Where the people in Camp 1 are either so privileged that they can't imagine that tearing down our society could hurt them personally, or don't think they have anything to lose either due to lack of empathy and social ties. or very real desperate financial circumstances.

I feel for that last group the most. There are far too many of our fellow citizens and fellow human beings who are suffering, and who don't need to be. But I don't think tearing everything down makes it better for them, and I'm skeptical that it would be a just trade even if it did. What I think Camp 1 gets you in practice is someone like Donald Trump (on the right or from the left, it doesn't really matter) tweeting idiocy while hundreds of thousands of people die and the rich get richer, faster while our civilization speeds towards its destruction.

I guess that all puts me in Camp 2, even though I think I'm pretty far left on a lot of issues, and I do think are current systems are badly broken. To use an analogy, yeah, our house is falling apart and we're not able to fix it. We need to build a new house. And while I don't trust the current landlord to rebuild, I trust the pyromaniacs who want to burn it down with people still inside even less. The least-bad solution I can see is the Fabian one: try to keep things working (and reforming) as best we can, and hope that circumstances change to allow us to make things better in ways we can't right now. I fear we're headed for The Jackpot or worse, but I'm not aware of any better, workable solutions.

You don’t think the jackpot ending might mean less to lose and might open more people up to Edgelordism that were initially invested in the system?

[VBM]

Yes.

[It’s so Joever]

Horseshoe theory: Everyone who used slightly different beliefs from me are all the same.

[freepcrusher]

My preferences are pretty much the exact opposite of yours. I find “cranks” to be annoying at best, actively detrimental to society at worst. Most of them are not particularly interesting, they are either just absolute idiots or Dunning-Kruger cases who think they are smarter than everybody else when in reality they are far from it. I don’t think either group is pleasant or stimulating to talk to at all. If you do for some reason, maybe try visiting an insane asylum some time. You’ll find hours of great conversation.

I mean my first choice would be more Henry Cuellars on the dem side and John Katkos on the R side. But if ideological extremism is an inevitability - I'd rather it be actually interesting people to listen to. Like when Josh Hawley gives some speech my first instinct is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_obeR1OIm8