Understanding the psychology of HBD/Racial Realism/Dark Enlightenment

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Captain_Maclaine: Sep 30, 2001; Every moment I'm alive, I pray for death!

DarklyDreaming posted:

Human Biodiversity. Basically a fancy pseudosciency term for "No Racial Mixing"

Uhh excuse me, I think you mean to say that,

Tell me more about what, exactly, you find you intellectually rigorous about these clowns? I get that their racism jives with the many failings and inadequacies that are the sum of your being, but is there more to it than that?

# ? Jul 2, 2015 03:00

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 17:01

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Captain_Maclaine posted:

I'm reminded of an essay from the early 1940s in which Dorothy Thompson, a regular writer for Harper's Monthly, speculated on just what was the appeal that drew people to Nazism (I'd link it but it's paywalled these days). It's not a perfect essay by any means, and gets way too sentimental at times, but I find much of her analysis interesting and insightful. In particular, there's one figure that sort of fits the neo-reactionaries we're talking about :

I managed to find an unpaywalled copy, but it is very poorly formatted, it looks like they just scanned the hardcopy to .txt and didn't do any cleanup. I did my best but I couldn't quite sort the last bit

quote:

WHO GOES NAZI?

BY DOROTHY THOMPSON

ris an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one's acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times � in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler to-morrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become "Honorary Aryans and Nazis"; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler's secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.

It is also, to an immense extent, the disease of a generation � the generation which was either young or unborn at the end of the last war. This is as true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans as of Germans. It is the disease of the so-called "lost generation."

Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work � a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.

At any rate, let us look round the room.

The gentleman standing beside the fireplace with an almost untouched glass of whiskey beside him on the mantel- piece is Mr. A, a descendant of one of the great American families. There has never been an American Blue Book with- out several persons of his surname in it. He is poor and earns his living as an editor. He has had a classical education, has a sound and cultivated taste in literature, painting, and music; has not a touch of snobbery in him; is full of humor, courtesy, and wit. He was a lieutenant in the World War, is a Republican in politics, but voted twice for Roosevelt, last time for Willkie. He is modest, not particularly brilliant, a staunch friend, and a man who greatly enjoys the company of pretty and witty women. His wife, whom he adored, is dead, and he will never remarry.

He has never attracted any attention because of outstanding bravery. But I will put my hand in the fire that nothing on earth could ever make him a Nazi. He would greatly dislike fighting them, but they could never convert him. . . . Why not?

Beside him stands Mr. B, a man of his own class, graduate of the same preparatory school and university, rich, a sports-man, owner of a famous racing stable, vice-president of a bank, married to a well-known society belle. He is a good fellow and extremely popular. But if America were going Nazi he would certainly join up, and early.

Why? . . . Why the one and not the other?

Mr. A has a life that is established according to a certain form of personal behavior. Although he has no money, his unostentatious distinction and education have always assured him a position. He has never been engaged in sharp competition. He is a free man. I doubt whether ever in his life he has done anything he did not want to do or anything that was against his code. Nazism wouldn't fit in with his standards and he has never become accustomed to making concessions.

Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and he has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own; it is that of his class � no worse, no better. He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value � success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.

The saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigree is already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was a poor white-trash Southern boy, a scholarship student at two universities where he took all the scholastic honors but was never invited to join a fraternity. His brilliant gifts won for him successively government positions, partnership in a prominent law firm, and eventually a highly paid job as a Wall Street adviser. He has always moved among important people and always been socially on the periphery. His colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them, but they have seldom invited him � or his wife � to dinner.

He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him � he despises, for instance, Mr. B � because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity.

Pity he has utterly erased from his nature, and joy he has never known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains. Already some of them are talking his language � though they have never met him.

There he sits: he talks awkwardly rather than glibly; he is courteous. He commands a distant and cold respect. But he is a very dangerous man. Were he primitive and brutal he would be a criminal � a murderer. But he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi regime. It would need men just like him � intellectual and ruthless.

But Mr. G is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism. He would laugh to see heads roll.

I think young D over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D is the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony. His life is spent in Bensation-seeking and theatricality. He is utterly inconsiderate of everybody. He is very good-looking, in a vacuous, cavalier way, and inordinately vain. He would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others.

Mrs. E would go Nazi as sure as you are born. That statement surprises you? Mrs. E seems so sweet, so clinging, so cowed. She is. She is a masochist. She is married to a man who never ceases to humiliate her, to lord it over her, to treat her with less consideration than he does his dogs. He is a prominent scientist, and Mrs. E, who married him very young, has persuaded herself that he is a genius, and that there is something of superior womanliness in her utter lack of pride, in her doglike devotion. She speaks disapprovingly of other "masculine" or insufficiently devoted wives. Her husband, however, is bored to death with her. He neglects her completely and she is looking for someone else before whom to pour her ecstatic self-abasement. She will titillate with pleased excitement to the first popular hero who proclaims the basic subordination of women.

On the other hand Mrs. F would never go Nazi. She is the most popular woman in the room, handsome, gay, witty, and full of the warmest emotion. She was a popular actress ten years ago; married very happily; promptly had four children in a row; has a charming house, is not rich but has no money cares, has never cut herself off from her own happy-go-lucky profession, and is full of sound health and sound common sense. All men try to make love to her; she laughs at them all, and her husband is amused. She has stood on her own feet since she was a child, she has enormously helped her husband's career (he is a lawyer), she would ornament any drawing-room in any capital, and she is as American as ice cream and cake.

How about the butler who is passing the drinks? I look at James with amused eyes. James is safe. James has been butler to the 'ighest aristocracy, considers all Nazis parvenus and communists, and has a very good sense for "people of quality." He serves the quiet editor with that friendly air of equality which good servants always show toward those they consider good enough to serve, and he serves the horsy gent stiffly and coldly.

Bill, the grandson of the chauffeur, is helping serve to-night. He is a product of a Bronx public school and high school, and works at night like this to help himself through City College, where he is studying engineering. He is a "proletarian," though you'd never guess it if you saw him without that white coat. He plays a crack game of tennis � has been a tennis tutor in summer resorts � swims superbly, gets straight A's in his classes, and thinks America is okay and don't let anybody say it isn't. He had a brief period of Youth Congress communism, but it was like the measles. He was not taken in the draft because his eyes are not good enough, but he wants to design airplanes, "like Sikorsky." He thinks Lindbergh is "just another pilot with a build-up and a rich wife" and that he is "always talking down America, like how we couldn't lick Hitler if we wanted to." At this point Bill snorts.

Mr. G is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy. He has been concerned with general ideas since the age of ten and has one of those minds that can scintillatingly rationalize everything. I have known him for ten years and in that time have heard him enthusiastically explain Marx, social credit, technocracy, Keynesian economics, Chestertonian distributism, and everything else one can imagine. Mr. G will never be a Nazi, because he will never be anything. His brain operates quite apart from the rest of his apparatus. He will certainly be able, however, fully to explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along. But Mr. G is always a "deviationist." When he played with communism he was a Trotskyist;
when he talked of Keynes it was to suggest improvement; Chesterton's economic ideas were all right but he was too bound to Catholic philosophy. So we may be sure that Mr. G would be a Nazi with purse-lipped qualifications. He would certainly be purged.

H is an historian and biographer. He is American of Dutch ancestry born and reared in the Middle West. He has been in love with America all his life. He can recite whole chapters of Thoreau and volumes of American poetry, from Emerson to Steve Benet. He knows Jefferson's letters, Hamilton's papers, Lincoln's speeches. He is a collector of early American furniture, lives in New England, runs a farm for a hobby and doesn't lose much money on it, and loathes parties like this one. He has a ribald and manly sense of humor, is unconventional and lost a college professorship because of a love affair. Afterward he married the lady and has lived happily ever afterward as the wages of sin.

H has never doubted his own authentic Americanism for one instant. This is his country, and he knows it from Acadia to Zenith. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and in all the wars since. He is certainly an intellectual, but an intellectual smelling slightly of cow barns and damp tweeds. He is the most good-natured and genial man alive, but if anyone ever tries to make this country over into an imitation of Hitler's, Mussolini's, or Petain's systems H will grab a gun and fight. Though H's liberalism will not permit him to say it, it is his secret conviction that nobody whose ancestors have not been in this country since before the Civil War really understands America or would really fight for it against Nazism or any other foreign ism in a showdown.

But H is wrong. There is one other person in the room who would fight alongside H and he is not even an American citizen. He is a young German Emigre, whom I brought along to the party. The people in the room look at him rather askance because he is so Germanic, so very blond-haired, so very blue-eyed, so tanned that somehow you expect him to be wearing shorts. He looks like the model of a Nazi. His English is flawed � he learned it only five years ago. He comes from an old East Prussian family; he was a member of the post-war Youth Movement and afterward of the Republican "Reichsbanner." All his German friends went Nazi � without exception. He hiked to Switzerland penniless, there pursued his studies in New Testament Greek, sat under the great Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, came to America through the assistance of an American friend whom he had met in a university, got a job teaching the classics in a fashionable private school; quit, and is working now in an airplane factory � working on the night shift to make planes to send to Britain to defeat Germany. He has devoured volumes of American history, knows Whitman by heart, wonders why so few Americans have ever really read the Federalist papers, believes in the United States of Europe, the Union of the English-speaking world, and the coming democratic revolution all over the earth. He believes that America is the country of Creative Evolution once it shakes off its middle-class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, its tentacle- like and spreading government, and sets itself innerly free.

The people in the room think he is not an American, but he is more American than almost any of them. He has discovered America and his spirit is the spirit of the pioneers. He is furious with America because it does not realize its strength and beauty and power. He talks about the workmen in the factory where he is employed. . . . He took the job "in order to understand the real America." He thinks the men are wonderful. "Why don't you American intellectuals ever get to them,' talk to them?"

I grin bitterly to myself, thinking that if we ever got into war with the Nazis he would probably be interned, while Mr. B and Mr. (� and Mrs. E would be spreading defeatism at all such parties as this one. "Of course I don't Like Hitler but . . ."

Mr. J over there is a Jew. Mr. J is a very important man. He is immensely rich � he has made a fortune through a dozen directorates in various companies, through a fabulous marriage, through a speculative flair, and through a native gift for money and a native love of power. He is intelligent and arrogant. He seldom associates with Jews. He deplores any mention of the "Jewish question." He believes that Hitler "should not be judged from the standpoint of anti-Semitism." He thinks that "the Jews should be reserved on all political questions." He considers Roosevelt "an enemy of business." He thinks "It was a serious blow to the Jews that Frankfurter should have been appointed to the Supreme Court."

The saturnine Mr. C � the real Nazi in the room � engages him in a flatteringly attentive conversation. Mr. J agrees with Mr. C wholly. Mr. J is definitely attracted by Mr. C. He goes out of his way to ask his name � they have never met before. "A very intelligent man."

Mr. K contemplates the scene with a sad humor in his expressive eyes. Mr. K is also a Jew. Mr. K is a Jew from the South. He speaks with a Southern drawl. He tells inimitable stories. Ten years ago he owned a very successful business that he had built up from scratch. He sold it for a handsome price, settled his indigent relatives in business, and now enjoys an income for himself of about fifty dollars a week. At forty he began to write articles about odd and out-of-the-way places in American life. A bachelor, and a sad man who makes everybody laugh, he travels continually, knows America from a thousand different facets, and loves it in a quiet, deep, unostentatious way. He is ;i great friend of H, the biograph Like 1 1, his ancestors have been in this country since Long before the Civil War. He is attracted to the young German.

By .'Hid by they are together in the drawing-room. The impeccable gentleman of New England, the country-man- intellcctual of the Middle West, the happy woman whom the gods love, the young German, the quiet, poised Jew from the South. And over on the other side are the others.

Mr. L has just come in. Mr. L is a lion these days. My hostess was all of a dither when she told me on the telephone, "... and L is coming. You know it's dreadfully hard to get him." L is a very powerful labor leader. "My dear, he is a man of the people, but really fascinating"

L is a man of the people and just exactly as fascinating as my horsy, bank vice-president, on-the-make acquaintance over there, and for the same reasons and in the same way. L makes speeches about the "third of the nation," and L has made a darned good thing for himself out of championing the oppressed. He has the best car of anyone in this room; salary means nothing to him because he lives on an expense account. He agrees with the very largest and most powerful industrialists in the country that it is the business of the strong to boss the weak, and he has made collective bargaining into a legal compulsion to appoint him or his henchmen as "labor's" agents, with the power to tax pay envelopes and do what they please with the money. L is the strongest natural-born Nazi in this room. Mr. B regards him with contempt tempered by hatred. Mr. B will use him. L is already parroting B's speeches. He has the brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible instinct for power. In private conversation he denounces the Jews as "parasites." No one has ever asked him what are the creative functions of a highly paid agent, who takes a percentage off the labor of millions of men, and distributes it where and as it may add to his own political power.

HI scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved

It's fun � a macabre sort of fun � this success by smelling out the wind of suc-

parlor game of "Who Goe^ Nazi?" cess � they would all go Nazi in a crisis.

And it simplifies things � asking the Believe me, nice people don't go Nazi,

question in regard to specific person- Their race, color, creed, or social condi-

alities. tion is not the criterion. It is something

Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, se- in them,

cure people never go Nazi. They may Those who haven't anything in them

be the gentle philosopher whose name is to tell them what they like and what they

in the Blue Book, or Bill from City Col- don't � whether it is breeding, or happi-

lege to whom democracy gave a chance ness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-

to design airplanes � you'll never make fashioned or however modern, go Nazi.

Nazis out of them. But the frustrated It's an amusing game. Try it at the

and humiliated intellectual, the rich and next big party you go to.

Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jul 2, 2015

# ? Jul 2, 2015 03:09

Gum: Mar 9, 2008; _{oho, a rapist

time to try this puppy out}

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

This article pegs storfront at 30% female, for what that's worth.

so heavily male-dominated?

# ? Jul 2, 2015 03:25

David Corbett: Feb 6, 2008; Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world.

DarklyDreaming posted:

Human Biodiversity. Basically a fancy pseudosciency term for "No Racial Mixing"

Mm. Because if anything is good for biodiversity, it's insisting on keeping populations totally isolated.

I guess miscegenation has never been my pet issue. As far as I'm concerned, pure breeding is for livestock.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 03:32

Ms Adequate: Oct 30, 2011; Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling

David Corbett posted:

Mm. Because if anything is good for biodiversity, it's insisting on keeping populations totally isolated.

I guess miscegenation has never been my pet issue. As far as I'm concerned, pure breeding is for livestock.

A lot of these morons realize that eugenics is a thing we could do with humans - there's no reason we couldn't, scientifically speaking - they just don't put two and two together to figure out why doing it would be a really loving terrible idea.

As a self-professed Huge loving Nerd who fetishises technology, I hate these goddamn idiots. If you're going to be a technophile or an outright transhumanist or something, then you should aim to become The Culture, not the loving ReMastered.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 04:21

Nckdictator: Sep 8, 2006; Just..someone

Fried Chicken posted:

I managed to find an unpaywalled copy, but it is very poorly formatted, it looks like they just scanned the hardcopy to .txt and didn't do any cleanup. I did my best but I couldn't quite sort the last bit

Here's the full thing. Google found a copy at some conspiracy theory website.

quote:

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one's acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times - in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become "Honorary Aryans and Nazis"; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler's secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.

It is also, to an immense extent, the disease of a generation - the generation which was either young or unborn at the end of the last war. This is as true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans as of Germans. It is the disease of the so-called "lost generation."

Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work - a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.

At any rate, let us look round the room.

The gentleman standing beside the fireplace with an almost untouched glass of whiskey beside him on the mantelpiece is Mr. A, a descendant of one of the great American families. There has never been an American Blue Book without several persons of his surname in it. He is poor and earns his living as an editor. He has had a classical education, has a sound and cultivated taste in literature, painting, and music; has not a touch of snobbery in him; is full of humor, courtesy, and wit. He was a lieutenant in the World War [Eds: WW1], is a Republican in politics, but voted twice for Roosevelt, last time for Willkie. He is modest, not particularly brilliant, a staunch friend, and a man who greatly enjoys the company of pretty and witty women. His wife, whom he adored, is dead, and he will never remarry.

He has never attracted any attention because of outstanding bravery. But I will put my hand in the fire that nothing on earth could ever make him a Nazi. He would greatly dislike fighting them, but they could never convert him.... Why not?

Beside him stands Mr. B, a man of his own class, graduate of the same preparatory school and university, rich, a sportsman, owner of a famous racing stable, vice-president of a bank, married to a well-known society belle. He is a good fellow and extremely popular. But if America were going Nazi he would certainly join up, and early. Why?... Why the one and not the other?

Mr. A has a life that is established according to a certain form of personal behavior. Although he has no money, his unostentatious distinction and education have always assured him a position. He has never been engaged in sharp competition. He is a free man. I doubt whether ever in his life he has done anything he did not want to do or anything that was against his code. Nazism wouldn't fit in with his standards and he has never become accustomed to making concessions.

Mr. B has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and he has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own; it is that of his class - no worse, no better. He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value - success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.

The saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigree is already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was a poor white-trash Southern boy, a scholarship student at two universities where he took all the scholastic honors but was never invited to join a fraternity. His brilliant gifts won for him successively government positions, partnership in a prominent law firm, and eventually a highly paid job as a Wall Street adviser. He has always moved among important people and always been socially on the periphery. His colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them, but they have seldom invited him - or his wife - to dinner.

He is a snob, loathing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him - he despises, for instance, Mr. B - because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work men like B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came. He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of the Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity.

Pity he has utterly erased from his nature, and joy he has never known. He has an ambition, bitter and burning. It is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him. Not to rule but to be the secret ruler, pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains. Already some of them are talking his language - though they have never met him.

There he sits: he talks awkwardly rather than glibly; he is courteous. He commands a distant and cold respect. But he is a very dangerous man. Were he primitive and brutal he would be a criminal - a murderer. But he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi regime. It would need men just like him - intellectual and ruthless. But Mr. C is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practising a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism. He would laugh to see heads roll.

I think young D over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D is the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony. His life is spent in sensation-seeking and theatricality. He is utterly inconsiderate of everybody. He is very good-looking, in a vacuous, cavalier way, and inordinately vain. He would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others.

Mrs. E would go Nazi as sure as you are born. That statement surprises you? Mrs. E seems so sweet, so clinging, so cowed. She is. She is a masochist. She is married to a man who never ceases to humiliate her, to lord it over her, to treat her with less consideration than he does his dogs. He is a prominent scientist, and Mrs. E, who married him very young, has persuaded herself that he is a genius, and that there is something of superior womanliness in her utter lack of pride, in her doglike devotion. She speaks disapprovingly of other "masculine" or insufficiently devoted wives. Her husband, however, is bored to death with her. He neglects her completely and she is looking for someone else before whom to pour her ecstatic self-abasement. She will titillate with pleased excitement to the first popular hero who proclaims the basic subordination of women.

On the other hand, Mrs. F would never go Nazi. She is the most popular woman in the room, handsome, gay, witty, and full of the warmest emotion. She was a popular actress ten years ago; married very happily; promptly had four children in a row; has a charming house, is not rich but has no money cares, has never cut herself off from her own happy-go-lucky profession, and is full of sound health and sound common sense. All men try to make love to her; she laughs at them all, and her husband is amused. She has stood on her own feet since she was a child, she has enormously helped her husband's career (he is a lawyer), she would ornament any drawing-room in any capital, and she is as American as ice cream and cake.

Part II

How about the butler who is passing the drinks? I look at James with amused eyes. James is safe. James has been butler to the highest aristocracy, considers all Nazis parvenus and communists, and has a very good sense for "people of quality." He serves the quiet editor with that friendly air of equality which good servants always show toward those they consider good enough to serve, and he serves the horsy gent stiffly and coldly.

Bill, the grandson of the chauffeur, is helping serve to-night. He is a product of a Bronx public school and high school, and works at night like this to help himself through City College, where he is studying engineering. He is a "proletarian," though you'd never guess it if you saw him without that white coat. He plays a crack game of tennis - has been a tennis tutor in summer resorts - swims superbly, gets straight A's in his classes, and thinks America is okay and don't let anybody say it isn't. He had a brief period of Youth Congress communism, but it was like the measles. He was not taken in the draft because his eyes are not good enough, but he wants to design airplanes, "like Sikorsky." He thinks Lindbergh is "just another pilot with a build-up and a rich wife" and that he is "always talking down America, like how we couldn't lick Hitler if we wanted to." At this point Bill snorts.

Mr. G is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy. He has been concerned with general ideas since the age of ten and has one of those minds that can scintillatingly rationalize everything. I have known him for ten years and in that time have heard him enthusiastically explain Marx, social credit, technocracy, Keynesian economics, Chestertonian distributism, and everything else one can imagine. Mr. G will never be a Nazi, because he will never be anything. His brain operates quite apart from the rest of his apparatus. He will certainly be able, however, fully to explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along. But Mr. G is always a "deviationist." When he played with communism he was a Trotskyist; when he talked of Keynes it was to suggest improvement; Chesterton's economic ideas were all right but he was too bound to Catholic philosophy. So we may be sure that Mr. G would be a Nazi with purse-lipped qualifications. He would certainly be purged.

H is an historian and biographer. He is American of Dutch ancestry born and reared in the Middle West. He has been in love with America all his life. He can recite whole chapters of Thoreau and volumes of American poetry, from Emerson to Steve Benet. He knows Jefferson's letters, Hamilton's papers, Lincoln's speeches. He is a collector of early American furniture, lives in New England, runs a farm for a hobby and doesn't lose much money on it, and loathes parties like this one. He has a ribald and manly sense of humor, is unconventional and lost a college professorship because of a love affair. Afterward he married the lady and has lived happily ever afterward as the wages of sin.

H has never doubted his own authentic Americanism for one instant. This is his country, and he knows it from Acadia to Zenith. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and in all the wars since. He is certainly an intellectual, but an intellectual smelling slightly of cow barns and damp tweeds. He is the most good-natured and genial man alive, but if anyone ever tries to make this country over into an imitation of Hitler's, Mussolini's, or Petain's systems H will grab a gun and fight. Though H's liberalism will not permit him to say it, it is his secret conviction that nobody whose ancestors have not been in this country since before the Civil War really understands America or would really fight for it against Nazism or any other foreign ism in a showdown.

But H is wrong. There is one other person in the room who would fight alongside H and he is not even an American citizen. He is a young German emigre, whom I brought along to the party. The people in the room look at him rather askance because he is so Germanic, so very blond-haired, so very blue-eyed, so tanned that somehow you expect him to be wearing shorts. He looks like the model of a Nazi. His English is flawed - he learned it only five years ago. He comes from an old East Prussian family; he was a member of the post-war Youth Movement and afterward of the Republican "Reichsbanner." All his German friends went Nazi - without exception. He hiked to Switzerland penniless, there pursued his studies in New Testament Greek, sat under the great Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, came to America through the assistance of an American friend whom he had met in a university, got a job teaching the classics in a fashionable private school; quit, and is working now in an airplane factory - working on the night shift to make planes to send to Britain to defeat Germany. He has devoured volumes of American history, knows Whitman by heart, wonders why so few Americans have ever really read the Federalist papers, believes in the United States of Europe, the Union of the English-speaking world, and the coming democratic revolution all over the earth. He believes that America is the country of Creative Evolution once it shakes off its middle-class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, its tentacle-like and spreading government, and sets itself innerly free.

The people in the room think he is not an American, but he is more American than almost any of them. He has discovered America and his spirit is the spirit of the pioneers. He is furious with America because it does not realize its strength and beauty and power. He talks about the workmen in the factory where he is employed.... He took the job "in order to understand the real America." He thinks the men are wonderful. "Why don't you American intellectuals ever get to them; talk to them?"

I grin bitterly to myself, thinking that if we ever got into war with the Nazis he would probably be interned, while Mr. B and Mr. G and Mrs. E would be spreading defeatism at all such parties as this one. "Of course I don't like Hitler but..."

Mr. J over there is a Jew. Mr. J is a very important man. He is immensely rich - he has made a fortune through a dozen directorates in various companies, through a fabulous marriage, through a speculative flair, and through a native gift for money and a native love of power. He is intelligent and arrogant. He seldom associates with Jews. He deplores any mention of the "Jewish question." He believes that Hitler "should not be judged from the standpoint of anti-Semitism." He thinks that "the Jews should be reserved on all political questions." He considers Roosevelt "an enemy of business." He thinks "It was a serious blow to the Jews that Frankfurter should have been appointed to the Supreme Court."

The saturnine Mr. C - the real Nazi in the room - engages him in a flatteringly attentive conversation. Mr. J agrees with Mr. C wholly. Mr. J is definitely attracted by Mr. C. He goes out of his way to ask his name - they have never met before. "A very intelligent man."

Mr. K contemplates the scene with a sad humor in his expressive eyes. Mr. K is also a Jew. Mr. K is a Jew from the South. He speaks with a Southern drawl. He tells inimitable stories. Ten years ago he owned a very successful business that he had built up from scratch. He sold it for a handsome price, settled his indigent relatives in business, and now enjoys an income for himself of about fifty dollars a week. At forty he began to write articles about odd and out-of-the-way places in American life. A bachelor, and a sad man who makes everybody laugh, he travels continually, knows America from a thousand different facets, and loves it in a quiet, deep, unostentatious way. He is a great friend of H, the biographer. Like H, his ancestors have been in this country since long before the Civil War. He is attracted to the young German. By and by they are together in the drawing-room. The impeccable gentleman of New England, the country-man - intellectual of the Middle West, the happy woman whom the gods love, the young German, the quiet, poised Jew from the South. And over on the other side are the others.

Mr. L has just come in. Mr. L is a lion these days. My hostess was all of a dither when she told me on the telephone, "...and L is coming. You know it's dreadfully hard to get him." L is a very powerful labor leader. "My dear, he is a man of the people, but really fascinating." L is a man of the people and just exactly as fascinating as my horsy, bank vice-president, on-the-make acquaintance over there, and for the same reasons and in the same way. L makes speeches about the "third of the nation," and L has made a darned good thing for himself out of championing the oppressed. He has the best car of anyone in this room; salary means nothing to him because he lives on an expense account. He agrees with the very largest and most powerful industrialists in the country that it is the business of the strong to boss the weak, and he has made collective bargaining into a legal compulsion to appoint him or his henchmen as "labor's" agents, with the power to tax pay envelopes and do what they please with the money. L is the strongest natural-born Nazi in this room. Mr. B regards him with contempt tempered by hatred. Mr. B will use him. L is already parroting B's speeches. He has the brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible instinct for power. In private conversation he denounces the Jews as "parasites." No one has ever asked him what are the creative functions of a highly paid agent, who takes a percentage off the labor of millions of men, and distributes it where and as it may add to his own political power.

Part III

It's fun - a macabre sort of fun - this parlor game of "Who Goes Nazi?" And it simplifies things - asking the question in regard to specific personalities.

Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes - you'll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success - they would all go Nazi in a crisis.

Believe me, nice people don't go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.

Those who haven't anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don't - whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern - go Nazi. It's an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 04:33

Mormon Star Wars: Aug 13, 2005; It's a minotaur race...

Fried Chicken posted:

I managed to find an unpaywalled copy, but it is very poorly formatted, it looks like they just scanned the hardcopy to .txt and didn't do any cleanup. I did my best but I couldn't quite sort the last bit

Hahaha, of course the dweeb likes Chestertonian distributism.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 04:57

ToxicSlurpee: Nov 5, 2003; -=SEND HELP=-; Pillbug

Mister Adequate posted:

A lot of these morons realize that eugenics is a thing we could do with humans - there's no reason we couldn't, scientifically speaking - they just don't put two and two together to figure out why doing it would be a really loving terrible idea.

As a self-professed Huge loving Nerd who fetishises technology, I hate these goddamn idiots. If you're going to be a technophile or an outright transhumanist or something, then you should aim to become The Culture, not the loving ReMastered.

The thing with eugenics is that the idea was to use selective breeding or genetic manipulation or whatever on ourselves to improve our gene pool. It would benefit the human race for sure if certain genetic diseases would vanish from our gene pool. Whether we like it or not our collective genetic code has some lovely stuff in it and it would improve us overall as a race if we could do things like give incentives to people with desirable traits to have more children.

The reason eugenics becomes a massive problem is that you get people arguing crap like "my race has all of the desirable traits and everybody else sucks." When you start combining eugenics and racism (which was really where almost all of the theories of eugenics ended up being applied) you get awful, awful poo poo like arguing that certain types of people should be forcefully sterilized against their will, certain races should be discouraged from breeding/exterminated outright, and people of my race should be paid to make as many babies as possible to outnumber all the other people because they suck and we don't.

Yes, in theory it would be useful to try to improve our gene pool. In practice it leads to nasty, nasty things.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 05:29

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Tetracube posted:

oh poo poo, this thread caught a live one

I have so many questions. how do you play the card game? what's it like living with crippling brain damage?

Check his rap sheet. That sad motherfucker has spent a minimum of $150 to post here.

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

http://www.splcenter.org/home/2013/spring/the-year-in-hate-and-extremism

http://abcnews.go.com/US/militias-hate-groups-grow-response-minority-population-boom/story?id=16370136#.T7ZfdnlYsXw

It would appear they have grown in number in recent years. It might just be how they define it, but as far as I know the splc believes the number of people involved has grown as well. That's just in general though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/seth-stephens-davidowitz-the-data-of-hate.html

This article pegs storfront at 30% female, for what that's worth.

I wasn't talking about hate groups in general, I was talking specifically about the so called "Dark Enlightenment", which, despite some overlap, seems qualitatively different than more traditional white supremacist groups like Stormfront or the KKK.

Actual hate groups like that are genuinely dangerous and, given sufficiently bad economic conditions for a long enough period of time, they could grow large enough to be an actual threat. The people tweeting about Moldburg and Nick Land, on the other hand, strike me as much less likely to catch on as a mass movement or even as a widespread ideology.

ronya posted:

serious talk: I'd guess that these people don't stem from Obama as much as Clinton's first term, when Republican efforts introduced paleoconservative ideas to a lot of then 16-25yo young men

if you can't recall the mood of the time, remember that The Bell Curve came out in 1994 and the Waco siege/Brady Act in 1993. NATO intervened in Bosnia 1992-1995, provoking a certain degree of clash-of-civilizational angst that NATO was siding with Bosnian Muslims instead of Serbian Christians before Huntington re-oriented the phrase or 9/11 focused mainstream attentions (hence lots of wild macrohistorical sketching). Intense debate over women in the military lasted from 1991 to 1993. NAFTA was signed in 1994; Pat Buchanan was a thing. The Clinton healthcare plan went down in flames in 1993.

now because party politics is party politics, come 2000 and healthcare stopped being a federal conspiracy against your freedoms and turned into Medicare Part D. Bush signed more free trade agreements. Bush appointed black people, women, and sometimes black women, into senior cabinet positions. Bush signed NCLB without acknowledging differences in student potential (cough IQ cough).

Now if you are a fairly normal fellow of Republican sympathies, you'd follow the mainstream as it tacked back to the center. However, some fraction of them instead went to dig themselves deeper into the hole. Some of those diggers became bloggers. Therefore.

It seems like the Dark Enlightenment or NRx or whatever you want to call them are distinct from the paleoconservatives you're describing, even if they have some overlapping ideas and sympathies.

If you read this description of the neo-reactionary movement you'll get a sense for how it's distinct from traditional forms of American conservatism. It totally dispenses with any mythologizing about the government belonging to the people or about the 'corruption' of democracy because to a neo-reactionary it is democracy itself that is corrupt. A monarch would be preferable to an elected king, which is something that pretty much no traditional American conservative would say.

Basically it's a call for libertarians to accept what their critics have always said about them - that their beliefs are incompatible with democracy.

Now, again, my question here is what evidence we have that this is catching on. I guess it's a bit disturbing that a guy like Peter Thiel and presumably some other Silicon Valley 1 percenters buy into this stuff but as it currently exists the Dark Enlightenment doesn't seem like it's likely to catch on. At most I imagine that some young conservatives will be influenced by it in the same way that some young liberals are influenced by a youthful dalliance with Marxism. But as far as a real political movement I'm not really sure how the Dark Enlightenment sees itself moving forward. Their plan seems to be to catch the ear of an influential billionaire who could put some fiscal muscle behind their beliefs, but I fail to see why such a billionaire would want to use weird ideas like the Dark Enlightenment when they can just turn to more marketable ideologies like libertarianism or evangelical Christianity.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 05:56

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I thought all of that was what genetic counselling and so forth is about. So basically we've kept that without having to sacrifice anything else.

The people who are acting like we need to have scything sweeps of medically-preventable deaths to "improve the stock" are idiots anyway. If a trait isn't being selected FOR, it won't increase save in a minor random way, is my understanding.

Also, if they're calling themselves Numenorians, that's a real good joke if you read what happened to those guys.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 05:56

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Nessus posted:

Also, if they're calling themselves Numenorians, that's a real good joke if you read what happened to those guys.

That's the more dignified and secret term, apparently. To the public they're "Dark Lords of the Sith". Here's a description from somebody who apparently flirted with the movement before pulling back in disgust:

quote:

The Dark Enlightenment Exposed

I first heard about the Dark Enlightenment (aka �Neo-Reaction� or just �Reaction�) last year, the year after I graduated from college and was interning at a conservative think tank. I briefly become involved with the Dark Enlightenment and then left the movement in disgust. Here is what I learned:

- The Dark Enlightenment is controlled by what the media call �Sith Lords�. You have more public Lords like Mencius Moldbug and Nick Land, but there are even some Lords up higher whose names are not revealed. They say the Master Lord says �Et Ego in Arcadia� which is an anagram for �Tego Arcana Dei� (�I hide the secrets of God�).
- But only the media call them �Sith Lords�. In Inner Speak, they will often use phrases like the Men of N�menor or the Eldars.
- I never met any of the higher Eldars, but I did once meet an Eldar in Training. I don�t know his real name but people called him Legolas. He had long blond hair, was dressed like a 19th century count, and wore a pendant that had both a Christian Cross and Thor�s Hammer on it.
- The movement is a weird mixture of ethno-nationalists, futurists, monarchists, PUAs (�pick-up artists� like Chateau Heartiste), Trad Catholics, Trad Protestants, etc. They all believe in HBD (what they call �human biodiversity� i.e. racism) but disagree on some other minor points.
- The religious people in the movement (both Christians and pagans) practice what is called �identitarian religion� (religion that doesn�t deny ethnic identity).
- Some of the rising stars of the Dark Enlightenment on the internet seem to be Radish Magazine, Occam�s Razor Mag, and Theden TV.
- The Dark Enlightenment allegedly has millions of dollars of money to play with. They have a couple big donors. One is rumored to be a major tech tycoon in Silicon Valley. They actually had a private 3-day meeting on an island which was furnished with a French chef, etc. Different forms of formal attire were required for each day (tuxedos, 3-piece suits, etc), and some weird costumes were required too (capes, hoods, etc) � which sound like a pagan cult. (I wasn�t at this function but heard about it.)
- I was initiated into the first stages of the Dark Enlightenment, which involved me stripping down naked so people could �inspect my phenotype�. I was then given a series of very personal questions, often relating to sexual matters. I was then told to put on a black cape. (I really regret doing this but at the time I was younger, more impressionable and eager to please.)
- For the initial oath taking, everyone must swear on a copy of Darwin�s Origin of Species, just to show their fidelity to HBD. After that, for the later oaths, seculars will swear again on Darwin, while Christians will swear on the Bible, and pagans on the Prose Edda or Iliad.
- At one of the meetings I heard someone continuously chanting �gens alba conservanda est� (Latin for �the white race must be preserved�) and then others were chanting things in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse and Old German, but I don�t know those languages so I can�t remember exactly what they were saying.
- They also have all their own secret handshakes, and their own terminology [like the Cathedral ("political correctness"), thedening ("re-establishing ethnic group identity"), genophilia ("love of one's own race"), NRx ("neoreaction"), etc.].
- On the philosophical level, this movement is not entirely original. Much of it is borrowed from the Identitarian movement in Europe. They also all detest democracy. They are not trying to be a �populist movement� but are only trying to convert other elites to their way of thinking.
This whole movement is like a secret cult, which is why I left. Also, because of the valiant and brave efforts of people on the net exposing this movement, I saw this cult for the evil it truly is. Please stay away from it.

The thing about nascent movements like this is that it�s hard to know when to pay attention and when to ignore them. If you ignore them they can grow in the dark, like mushrooms on dung. If you make too much fuss, you can attract idiots�particularly extremist idiots�who automatically assume that anything normal people find objectionable must be awesome, radical, and �not PC� and therefore good. But of course, cannibalism is not PC either and embracing something simply and solely on the basis that it is a �reaction� is one of the stupidest things humans can do. You can�t build a life on protest and reaction. You have to be for something, not merely against something. And at the end of the day, the only real core of DE �thought� is to be for racialism.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 06:04

anchoress: Dec 24, 2011; by XyloJW

Helsing posted:

That's the more dignified and secret term, apparently. To the public they're "Dark Lords of the Sith". Here's a description from somebody who apparently flirted with the movement before pulling back in disgust:

that article was a big troll iirc

# ? Jul 2, 2015 06:34

croc suit: Nov 13, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Everything you nerds have posted in this thread applies equally to internet marxists except also pedo poo poo and sexual deviancy lmfao

# ? Jul 2, 2015 06:37

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

anchoress posted:

that article was a big troll iirc

How disappointing. I can't believe patheos.com would lead me astray like that.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 06:39

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

i buy the part where it's cosplaying weirdos who mask their general racism with like cloaks and latin and poo poo. racists with half a brain love mythology

# ? Jul 2, 2015 06:43

ronya: Nov 8, 2010; I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.

Helsing posted:

It seems like the Dark Enlightenment or NRx or whatever you want to call them are distinct from the paleoconservatives you're describing, even if they have some overlapping ideas and sympathies...

I think it's analagous to a center-left party playing up radical leftist theories when it is sitting in opposition; as soon as it regains power, it would disavow any unpalatable radicalism. Nonetheless those ideas would have had a brief moment in the sun, and radicals would dispense with remaining ties to the center (likely acrimoniously).

The question was why there is such thematic unity amongst these people. Wingnuts would spread out a little. You could argue that sexism and racism are fundamental impulses, but the emphasis on scientific racism/sexism backed up by invocations of pseudoeconomics clearly smells of Charles Murray, and even if one explains this away, there's still the bizarre penumbra of unrelated beliefs e.g. support for Austrian economics (shades of Lew Rockwell). These are pretty common amongst these lot! But atheism, monarchism, libertarianism/anarchism/monarchism is not universal. Vox Day is pretty darned theoconservative. Steve Sailor really loves America and picks different bases for his anti-immigration writing.

The main "moment" they share seems to be the early 1990s, when American politics was highly interested in scientific sexism and racism, dominated by claims to authoritative consensus economic policy in the triumphal post-Cold-War, post-monetarism/Keynesianism context, and prone toward conspiracism as trust in Congress fell dramatically.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 07:49

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

croc suit posted:

Everything you nerds have posted in this thread applies equally to internet marxists except also pedo poo poo and sexual deviancy lmfao

gotta move in on your kino after you neg, bro

# ? Jul 2, 2015 08:04

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

There are tons of very smart people working in academia if you want to feel smart (you wont feel smart you will feel dumb but that's good) and talk to smart people just go into grad school.

I'm sure everyone can point out how academia is far from perfect, it's full of professors who can't communicate the ideas that they're researching, terrible supervisors, incompetent departments, obvious corporate interests, but the one upside to there now being a zillion Master's and PhD students is there are a lot of people running around, engaged in relevant scholarship in a desperate bid to stand out from the crowd in order to get one of the few tenure track jobs left to a bloated pool of candidates.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 08:11

croc suit: Nov 13, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Nessus posted:

gotta move in on your kino after you neg, bro

# ? Jul 2, 2015 08:27

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

croc suit posted:

Everything you nerds have posted in this thread applies equally to internet marxists except also pedo poo poo and sexual deviancy lmfao

It's amazing how much internet reactionaries and internet radicals have in common, at the end of the day. Like going off the deep end ideologically is a normal response to being unhappy with your place in the world but feeling powerless to change it.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 13:18

Captain_Maclaine: Sep 30, 2001; Every moment I'm alive, I pray for death!

wateroverfire posted:

It's amazing how much internet reactionaries and internet radicals have in common, at the end of the day. Like going off the deep end ideologically is a normal response to being unhappy with your place in the world but feeling powerless to change it.

Wait hold on you're blowing my mind here; so if the extreme right is wrong*, and the extreme left is wrong, then where is the truth exactly? Help me out here man.

_{^{*you don't actually believe this one but we'll play along for the moment.}}

# ? Jul 2, 2015 13:28

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

The key to understanding many of the crimes of revolutionary regimes is the existence of people like croc suit. Behind his sneering facade lies the institutionalization of dissenters in the USSR, the violence of the Terror, the Cultural Revolution. Rooting his predecessors out prompted the Cultural Revolution, the purges, the Terror itself, ultimately. Because he is incapable of behaving justly, only following blindly whatever ideology he latched on to, he is inherently counter-revolutionary when the goal is a just society. The eternal challenge is how to remove him from any kind of power without bloodshed and without hurting innocents.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 14:25

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

Effectronica posted:

The eternal challenge is how to remove him from any kind of power without bloodshed

Why, are you worried about the carpet? We can get new carpets.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 15:04

Miltank: Dec 27, 2009; by XyloJW

wateroverfire posted:

It's amazing how much internet reactionaries and internet radicals have in common, at the end of the day. Like going off the deep end ideologically is a normal response to being unhappy with your place in the world but feeling powerless to change it.

You mean they both notice the same flaws in liberalism?

# ? Jul 2, 2015 15:38

BornAPoorBlkChild: Sep 24, 2012

Helsing posted:

Watch this clip and replace "anti-semite" with "SJW" or "Cultural Marxist" and you've pretty much summed up the movement.

They don't just overcook a burger.

Maybe you should put a bit of effort into substantiating some of the claims you've made so far, specifically:

1) These groups are growing at an "alarming rate"
2) There are significant numbers of women in these groups
3) The Dark Enlightenment and the rise of the far right in Europe are closely related

So far as I can tell none of these things are really true, but I'm open to persuasion here. What's your evidence?

Not wanting to run away or be considered unconstructive, I'll answer to the best of my ability

1: http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/05/30/3443037/europe-far-right-groups/

http://www.vocativ.com/culture/uncategorized/dark-enlightenment-creepy-internet-movement-youd-better-take-seriously/

https://solidarity-us.org/node/2637

I could go on, but you get the point.

2: google hbdchick. Theres plenty more but im not going to sit here and list every single one dude.

As far as 3 goes. Dont you think it's mighty peculiar how Dark Enlightenment became a thing RIGHT around a time where the UK and Europe are going in a insanely far right direction?

but i guess its just me then

# ? Jul 2, 2015 15:39

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

Miltank posted:

You mean they both notice the same flaws in liberalism?

While at the same time not being capable enough to succeed in a liberal world. Or their ideal world were it realized, because the source of their discontent is ultimately internal.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 16:01

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

wateroverfire posted:

While at the same time not being capable enough to succeed in a liberal world. Or their ideal world were it realized, because the source of their discontent is ultimately internal.

LOL

# ? Jul 2, 2015 16:20

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I think it makes sense to say that dork enlightenment is a symptom of an increasing reaction presence, but I don't think this particular reaction has much of a chance of getting off the ground.

In a time of uncertainty, it can be comforting to fall back on 'old' ideas, and it is from this impulse that reaction springs. The problem is that the past it falls back on is retroactively white-washed. There's no critical analysis of crisis, nor an acceptance of the basic truth of human history - There is no 'evil' that can be measured and purged, which will place everything in a righteous order. Life, politics and justice are just part of a process, but one without foundation in natural reality. So race is made up, power corrupts and the universe is indifferent (the 20th century sends its regards), but these facts are inconvenient if you base confidence in your own beliefs on mystical narratives of a fall from grace - hence the conspiratorial/pseudo-scientific turns.

Don't let the occasional techno-fetishism fool you. These guys are morons too arrogant to admit error, and too insecure to suffer anything less than the title of 'serious intellectual'.

wateroverfire posted:

It's amazing how much internet reactionaries and internet radicals have in common, at the end of the day. Like going off the deep end ideologically is a normal response to being unhappy with your place in the world but feeling powerless to change it.

The question of how much personal status controls ideological bias is an interesting one, but it cuts both ways. If you're secure in living then you may be more likely to jump in with the status quo, but that's no less a symptom of confirmation bias than the excluded jumping on something that runs counter to the status quo. There is no position of objectivity from which you can see it comfortably all unfold, at least as long as you're a human being. Your beliefs will always end up being self-serving in one way or another, all you can do is try to mitigate it.

At least until the robot is made that runs on perfect bayesian thinking, then we're pretty screwed.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 16:28

Miltank: Dec 27, 2009; by XyloJW

wateroverfire posted:

While at the same time not being capable enough to succeed in a liberal world. Or their ideal world were it realized, because the source of their discontent is ultimately internal.

So a certain percent of the population will always be a dissident regardless of material circumstances because of inherent behavioral flaws?

# ? Jul 2, 2015 16:49

down with slavery: Dec 23, 2013; STOP QUOTING MY POSTS SO PEOPLE THAT AREN'T IDIOTS DON'T HAVE TO READ MY FUCKING TERRIBLE OPINIONS THANKS

wateroverfire posted:

While at the same time not being capable enough to succeed in a liberal world. Or their ideal world were it realized, because the source of their discontent is ultimately internal.

What if you're content with your life but you feel bad for the working poor that you have to interact with on a daily basis?

# ? Jul 2, 2015 16:53

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

rudatron posted:

Don't let the occasional techno-fetishism fool you. These guys are morons too arrogant to admit error, and too insecure to suffer anything less than the title of 'serious intellectual'.

Techno-fetishism and being an arrogant moron aren't at all mutually exclusive. (Do we have a bitcoin smiley?)

rudatron posted:

At least until the robot is made that runs on perfect bayesian thinking, then we're pretty screwed.

But who will pick the right priors?

# ? Jul 2, 2015 16:55

Crowsbeak: Oct 9, 2012; by Azathoth; Lipstick Apathy

wateroverfire posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fOpLDc2RF0

As for grievances life seems pretty good actually.

Post some actual good christian metal, like Theocracy.

wateroverfire posted:

It's amazing how much internet reactionaries and internet radicals have in common, at the end of the day. Like going off the deep end ideologically is a normal response to being unhappy with your place in the world but feeling powerless to change it.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 17:31

WorldsStongestNerd: Apr 28, 2010; by Fluffdaddy

Basically op, some people are just stupid. They may think they aren't because they are educated in a discipline or have run a business, but some of those people have just mastered one aspect of intelligence and may lack general intelligence.

Part of the human population is very stupid. I say this not as an insult. The ability to think critically and form your own values may have evolved last and not spread thru the entire population. These people can't form thier own ideas and thus absorb whatever ideas appeal to them emotionally, which is to say ideas and values where they get more power and whatever they were already doing is right. I feel this explains dark enlightenment, conservatives, Nazis, as well as some Marxists and liberals. Thanks to this modern age of specialization these people can gain enough skill in one area to become successful and powerful, which makes others and themselves think they are smart. Thus the social landscape changes .

# ? Jul 2, 2015 20:09

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Miltank posted:

You mean they both notice the same flaws in liberalism?

I noticed this too. Especially the "But liberalism is an ideology too!" stuff.

DE people tend to miss the similarities because they tend to assume that the difference between mainstream US liberals and, say, Stalinists is more quantitative than qualitative.

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jul 2, 2015

# ? Jul 2, 2015 20:42

Series DD Funding: Nov 25, 2014; by exmarx

WorldsStrongestNerd posted:

Basically op, some people are just stupid. They may think they aren't because they are educated in a discipline or have run a business, but some of those people have just mastered one aspect of intelligence and may lack general intelligence.

Part of the human population is very stupid.

What a brilliant and smart thesis

E: in what way are they stupid?

Series DD Funding fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Jul 2, 2015

# ? Jul 2, 2015 21:04

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Series DD Funding posted:

What a brilliant and smart thesis

E: in what way are they stupid?

Genetically :ironicat:

# ? Jul 2, 2015 21:07

Series DD Funding: Nov 25, 2014; by exmarx

Supporting policies where you get more power isn't "stupid." In fact d&d posters regularly love talking about how "stupid" voters are for allegedly doing the opposite

# ? Jul 2, 2015 21:09

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Series DD Funding posted:

Supporting policies where you get more power isn't "stupid." In fact d&d posters regularly love talking about how "stupid" voters are for allegedly doing the opposite

N-noo.... not "D&D posters"... your blatant hypocrisy is my kryptoniteeeeeee....

# ? Jul 2, 2015 21:12

WorldsStongestNerd: Apr 28, 2010; by Fluffdaddy

Series DD Funding posted:

What a brilliant and smart thesis

E: in what way are they stupid?

Jesus dude it's in my post. The inability to think critically or form thier own ideas.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 21:34

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 17:01

Series DD Funding: Nov 25, 2014; by exmarx

WorldsStrongestNerd posted:

Jesus dude it's in my post. The inability to think critically or form thier own ideas.

They as a group obviously have formed their own ideas, since it's distinctly different from what's arrived before. But in general, that's a useless response because to the extent it's a stupidity, it's a universal human one. I know you mentioned it extends to "some liberals" as well, but a political group by definition must involve lots of people copying ideas. It's why they're a group instead of random individual thinkers.

You can see it in action all the time. Ideas are created by a small group of liberals/progressives/conservatives/whoever, and it becomes a meme among that group.

# ? Jul 2, 2015 21:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Understanding the psychology of HBD/Racial Realism/Dark Enlightenment

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