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Woke Left, Alt Right; Both are Retarded Idpol ideologies
I was reminded again today during a "debate" on some other platform, that the so-called "Alt Right" is just as bad as the Woke Left. The only thing that makes them less annoying than Woke Progressives, is the fact the Alt Right currently enjoys zero institutional power/influence. So arguing with them is harmless, in that whenever they lose arguments (their ideas are complete garbage, so they always lose to anyone who can slap together a coherent string of statements) they have no sympathetic internet hall monitors to cry to in order to get your account blacklisted or banned from whatever social platform you might be interacting with them on. But hypothetically, if these people were to be in a position of real power, they would probably be just as terrible and authoritarian as the Woke Left is right now when it comes to the exercise of that power.
Now, I do have to say that I used to lurk on some forums and other spaces where Alt Right people would hang out, particularly the "Chan" boards. But this was during the 2014-2017 era, back when the memes originating from the Chans were pretty funny and edgy, and largely spread around the internet in an ironic manner as a pushback against the initial emergence of Woke ideology into the cultural mainstream. After around 2017, with Trump firmly in office, Alt Right memes became stale and played out. By this time, anyone remaining too far to the Right openly found themselves banned from mainstream social media platforms and thus shunted into their own little echo-chambers. And like with any small echo-chamber, an atmosphere of shrill insularity is what results. I find such places to be utterly boring and obnoxious.
Identity Politics vs. the Intellect
Both the far Left and Right ideological camps are each built on shaky foundation of identity politics (idpol). For the Wokesters, it's class-based (PMC) idpol masquerading as various "civil rights" causes which ostensibly exist for the benefit of whatever grab-bag of "underprivileged" demographic groups are currently en-sympathy-vogue among the PMC-Left. And for one particular noisy corner of the Alt Right, the "White Identitarians," it's race-based, and focused on a collectivized "Whiteness" not too dissimilar from what Wokesters today like to focus their rage-energies on. This mentality assumes anyone living in the US who is of primarily European ancestry, must have the same political interests and cultural preferences (this is obviously not the case). Proponents of this particular idpol flavor seem to express the idea that within this homogenous "White" identity, there are no important class or cultural differences (also completely wrong). But I don't have enough space in this brief essay to go into the ins-and-outs of these bad beliefs. I want to instead focus on the main theme one might quickly come across when interacts with these people.
Besides the usual gratuitous racist rhetoric, the main expressive theme is Antisemitism. It's a totally unavoidable stink in those corners of the internet. Spend just five minutes in an Alt Right online space and you'll soon see the Jews being blamed for everything and anything wrong with the world; particularly things involving the downfall of Western Civilization. Of course, never mentioned are any problems with the Western culture itself, nor any acknowledgment of the natural rise/fall cycles every single civilization and culture is subject to, nor the acknowledgment that European Jews are in fact a subculture within the fold of Western civilization. Many of these Alt Righters seem to believe that "Jews" collectively lord over them like a privileged aristocracy. Taken further, "the Jews" are said to engage in all sorts of illicit and debased activities that of course go totally unacknowledged and unpunished. I won't get into the gory details, but I will simply say that many of these accusations are quite reminiscent of the "blood libel" hysteria so common in Medieval Europe. As someone of partial Jewish ancestry, this rhetoric of course rubs me the wrong way, to put it lightly.
Original Sin was always a Stupid Idea
I see the "Blame the Jews" rhetoric as being the mother of all "ancestral guilt" narratives. I see ANY narrative of this type as being a combination of wrong, evil, and stupid. But of course the proponents of these narratives always employ some permutation of the Special Pleading Fallacy to convey the idea that their own brand of hateful garbage is uniquely correct! The Woke Left today has taken the Ancestral Guilt Narrative and turned it onto different set of collective abstractions: "White people" and "whiteness." Though of course the American Woke Left is mostly White, and by that, they don't include themselves as being "White People" in this context. Well, I think this is because it's not actually racial hatred toward Whites as a whole that's at play here, but rather it's class hatred, despite what the more naïve elements of the Right might believe. When Wokesters screech about "White People" what they really mean is White People from the less privileged classes of society, i.e. non-PMC white people. You know, the Deplorables, the Rednecks, the inhabitants of the country's interior "flyover" states who consistently vote the wrong way, ect. But I digress much.
Finally, the racist/antisemitic corner of the Dissident Right so easy volunteer themselves, like the clueless dupes they are, as a ready-made boogeyman/strawman; one that gives the Neoliberal establishment and its corporate media bullhorn an easy villain for its PMC flock to fear as some sort of imminent and credible threat (which of course they are not). The Alt Right volunteer themselves as the the prefect rallying cry to bring unity to what's otherwise a morally-bankrupt and increasingly-degenerate cultural aristocracy. The emerging Populist movement has woken up to the fact that the PMCs hates their guts, though they tend to lack the precise language of class analysis to make crystal clear sense of what's actually going on (i.e. they think it's "Libtards" who are out to get them). Thankfully, most of the Populists are too good-natured to sink to the low of responding in kind to the PMCs with counter-bigotry. No, it's mostly just the Alt Right (who are rebel PMCs for the most part) who do that.
Lastly, I do realize there are other corners and factions of the Dissident Right, and ones that have more interested and nuanced ideas from that of the popular conception of the Alt Right. Maybe I'll get into those groups another time. Though, despite a few observational insights or worth to be found within, I find their ideas to also be intellectually-bankrupt, for the most part.
Now, I do have to say that I used to lurk on some forums and other spaces where Alt Right people would hang out, particularly the "Chan" boards. But this was during the 2014-2017 era, back when the memes originating from the Chans were pretty funny and edgy, and largely spread around the internet in an ironic manner as a pushback against the initial emergence of Woke ideology into the cultural mainstream. After around 2017, with Trump firmly in office, Alt Right memes became stale and played out. By this time, anyone remaining too far to the Right openly found themselves banned from mainstream social media platforms and thus shunted into their own little echo-chambers. And like with any small echo-chamber, an atmosphere of shrill insularity is what results. I find such places to be utterly boring and obnoxious.
Identity Politics vs. the Intellect
Both the far Left and Right ideological camps are each built on shaky foundation of identity politics (idpol). For the Wokesters, it's class-based (PMC) idpol masquerading as various "civil rights" causes which ostensibly exist for the benefit of whatever grab-bag of "underprivileged" demographic groups are currently en-sympathy-vogue among the PMC-Left. And for one particular noisy corner of the Alt Right, the "White Identitarians," it's race-based, and focused on a collectivized "Whiteness" not too dissimilar from what Wokesters today like to focus their rage-energies on. This mentality assumes anyone living in the US who is of primarily European ancestry, must have the same political interests and cultural preferences (this is obviously not the case). Proponents of this particular idpol flavor seem to express the idea that within this homogenous "White" identity, there are no important class or cultural differences (also completely wrong). But I don't have enough space in this brief essay to go into the ins-and-outs of these bad beliefs. I want to instead focus on the main theme one might quickly come across when interacts with these people.
Besides the usual gratuitous racist rhetoric, the main expressive theme is Antisemitism. It's a totally unavoidable stink in those corners of the internet. Spend just five minutes in an Alt Right online space and you'll soon see the Jews being blamed for everything and anything wrong with the world; particularly things involving the downfall of Western Civilization. Of course, never mentioned are any problems with the Western culture itself, nor any acknowledgment of the natural rise/fall cycles every single civilization and culture is subject to, nor the acknowledgment that European Jews are in fact a subculture within the fold of Western civilization. Many of these Alt Righters seem to believe that "Jews" collectively lord over them like a privileged aristocracy. Taken further, "the Jews" are said to engage in all sorts of illicit and debased activities that of course go totally unacknowledged and unpunished. I won't get into the gory details, but I will simply say that many of these accusations are quite reminiscent of the "blood libel" hysteria so common in Medieval Europe. As someone of partial Jewish ancestry, this rhetoric of course rubs me the wrong way, to put it lightly.
Original Sin was always a Stupid Idea
I see the "Blame the Jews" rhetoric as being the mother of all "ancestral guilt" narratives. I see ANY narrative of this type as being a combination of wrong, evil, and stupid. But of course the proponents of these narratives always employ some permutation of the Special Pleading Fallacy to convey the idea that their own brand of hateful garbage is uniquely correct! The Woke Left today has taken the Ancestral Guilt Narrative and turned it onto different set of collective abstractions: "White people" and "whiteness." Though of course the American Woke Left is mostly White, and by that, they don't include themselves as being "White People" in this context. Well, I think this is because it's not actually racial hatred toward Whites as a whole that's at play here, but rather it's class hatred, despite what the more naïve elements of the Right might believe. When Wokesters screech about "White People" what they really mean is White People from the less privileged classes of society, i.e. non-PMC white people. You know, the Deplorables, the Rednecks, the inhabitants of the country's interior "flyover" states who consistently vote the wrong way, ect. But I digress much.
Finally, the racist/antisemitic corner of the Dissident Right so easy volunteer themselves, like the clueless dupes they are, as a ready-made boogeyman/strawman; one that gives the Neoliberal establishment and its corporate media bullhorn an easy villain for its PMC flock to fear as some sort of imminent and credible threat (which of course they are not). The Alt Right volunteer themselves as the the prefect rallying cry to bring unity to what's otherwise a morally-bankrupt and increasingly-degenerate cultural aristocracy. The emerging Populist movement has woken up to the fact that the PMCs hates their guts, though they tend to lack the precise language of class analysis to make crystal clear sense of what's actually going on (i.e. they think it's "Libtards" who are out to get them). Thankfully, most of the Populists are too good-natured to sink to the low of responding in kind to the PMCs with counter-bigotry. No, it's mostly just the Alt Right (who are rebel PMCs for the most part) who do that.
Lastly, I do realize there are other corners and factions of the Dissident Right, and ones that have more interested and nuanced ideas from that of the popular conception of the Alt Right. Maybe I'll get into those groups another time. Though, despite a few observational insights or worth to be found within, I find their ideas to also be intellectually-bankrupt, for the most part.
no subject
Reading your breakdown here, though, made me realize something: growing up in the suburbs in the PMC, what I was noticing was that the kids and their families were the same class as me, which I contrasted with the more obvious ethnic differences (Korean, black, etc) some other kids in the same class had (not that those seemed important either, but I could at least kinda-sorta understand how folks might see it as a "real" difference).
So, from this point of view, your notion that folks who buy into racial/ethnic identities, but are actually subconsciously equating them with their class (such as, say, some wage class whites or rebellious PMC white kids who pick up the alt right for lulz/shock, or on the other hand, woke warriors who equate the welfare class with black folks) makes a lot of sense. If that's the what's happening, you can put together a theory: these folks see a problem between their ingroup and an outgroup (their differences with the PMC), they're pre-disposed to think that the differences that matter are racial differences, so they look at the PMC and ask "what race could this really be?" and they end up with "Jews", since most Jews in Western countries are pretty firmly part of the PMC these days.
Whether the above is right or not, interesting stuff to consider, at any rate!
(no subject)
(no subject)