/lit/ - Literature

>>11416656
>There are people like Zizek that unironically think the Cultural Revolution (deaths aside) was a good thing

You are confusing Zizek with Badiou.

>>11416666
Nice 6s, but I'm not. He believes the same thing. I actually heard him say this in a recent video, and I can pull that up for you if you want.

>>11416676
Wait, did he say that the Cultural Revolution ironically helped to bring capitalism to China by erasing last remnants of feudalism?

>>11416686
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuwvGT-dbnM&feature=youtu.be&t=455

>>11416656
Nice ideology there mate. You don't even give any examples and rant based on your emotions. But it's good that you feel that way, one more step and you'll become a comrade

I read the communist manifesto recently. My initial reaction was "wow, how does he expect to get the working class on board with all this wanky language?", but then when he started railing against every other type of socialist in the most obviously mean-spirited and embittered way, I realized the document wasn't addressed to the working class at all and was just his kikey beta uprising in the socialist milieu. I want to read the utopian socialists now. They apparently influenced Hitler's conception of national socialism - which at least on an economic level, actually worked, and I hypothesize that Marx derailed socialism for decades by turning it into this soulless us vs. them dichotomy of people who "need to work for their common interests and utterly crush their opponent" despite having nothing in common other than not owning the means of production. He also favored the bourgeoisie against the petty bourgeoisie in Germany apparently, due to some Machiavellian thing. Marx and Freud have done more to wreck the European world than anyone in recent history, probably, which is weird because they're both obviously hacks. We could probably avoid being fooled again by only letting people with IQs above 120 into liberal arts.

>>11416656
>>11416885
The tragedies of the revolutionary left are
1) the winner of the ideological dickfight was Marx, so everyone just associates it with Marx, even though Marx is an abomination
2) violent bastards used various ideologies as cover to justify their violent action. This is obviously not limited to the left, but its ignored by the more gentle types on the left who are among the most pacifistic people you'll ever meet otherwise.

But there are truly interesting thinkers on the revolutionary left. I had a lot of fun fighting with Proudhon and Kropotkin. People like Godwin are bit too lightweight. Unironically de Sade is another interesting one. And since you're on lit you already know about Deleuze and that whole can of worms.

>>11416885
I don't know, anon, Marx was certainly a piece of shit, but his analysis of capitalism done in Das Kapital often holds up, even after all these years. But I guess that was his strongest point, not so much the socialist vision.
I don't think I've ever, ever, read or heard someone sketch out a socialist vision that made me even remotely excited. It always sounds so banal. Maybe I've just read the wrong people, who knows.
But going back to my original point, it's probably a good idea to read Das Kapital before you form a concrete opinion of Marx. Many of his early thoughts espoused in stuff like the Communist Manifesto are thoroughly reworked.

>>11416947
A reasonable take on the revolutionary left is theyre much better when saying no, and often complete nonsense when saying yes. I mean it all turned into "critical theory" in the end which is a clue

>>11416941
I'm interested in Gramsci, because the American and European New Right are both influenced by his idea of cultural hegemony. Apparently Guillaume Faye used the phrase "Gramscianism of the right", and Greg Johnson writes and speaks about a goal of nationalism being a hegemonic idea. I don't know anything about Deleuze since I don't come here often.
>>11416947
I want to read Capital eventually, and I do own a copy, but after the manifesto I'm not necessarily chomping at the bit for more Marx. It's more important in my view to develop my own positive worldview into something more understanding and nuanced than to be able to thoroughly argue against my opponents - and then poorly understand what I would propose to oppose their vision. I find fascism and Strasserism stimulating, if you can consider them socialist. People misunderstand fascism as being another form of antisocial capitalism, which couldn't be further from the truth. Fascism is the socialism of the right.

>>11417000
>I find fascism and Strasserism stimulating, if you can consider them socialist. People misunderstand fascism as being another form of antisocial capitalism, which couldn't be further from the truth. Fascism is the socialism of the right.
May I ask what exactly you like about fascism? Or rather, what is that positive vision you have for it? What does your ideal fascist country/world look like?

>>11417000
Gramsci is actually the first Marxist I read way back when. He is the turning point away from the elder Marx's "scientific" dogmas and the idea that everything proceeds from the economic base, to him the cultural level is not at all epiphenomenal. Its interesting, and with hindsight its easy to see he was closer to the truth than Marx himself, but for that very reason I think its inaccurate to even call him a Marxist really (it becomes especially inaccurate after him, the "culture" floodgates were then open). However he had given his life to revolutionary Marxism and he couldnt really disown the label, so he tried to root his theories in the work of the younger Marx; after him Marxism really is just a rallying flag since the content of the theoretical position people take from then on has very little to do with Das Kapital (except for Althusser I suppose, but Althusser is kind of useless).

>>11417026
The biggest appeals of fascism (including national socialism which I know more about) are
the confluence of populism and hierarchy, where the justification of people having power and authority over others is the service of the people itself (through "right-wing socialist" practices including corporatism, strategic market intervention, provision of work rather than currency or tokens, and others), although fascism also embraces the truth that there is a natural hierarchy of quality and seeks to increase the quality of people, opposed to modern American democracy which ignores every marker of a person's quality other than being 18 years old (the original American democracy was much more hierarchical and concerned with quality). I don't think that fascism adequately addresses the problem of how power is achieved aside from revolution, which is my main problem with it.

Another appeal is the promotion of the flourishing of the people and tradition of that nation specifically, another appeal is the ideal of economic self-sufficiency - otherwise international trade is necessarily approached from a position of weakness.
>>11417037
I like the cultural element of what I've read about him, but as a rightist I already know that strict materialism is fake and gay, and I can't take it as seriously as someone who might start reading Marxists when they're young.

>>11417086
He has a lot to say after the "strict materialism is fake and gay" part of his argument, about how he thinks a culture-oriented revolution could proceed. I'd imagine this is what interests rightists who see themselves as losing ground culturally. I would caution that its not entirely clear to me whether what Gramsci describes as possible is actually what happened and is the real reason why we're in the strange situation we are, but it certainly might be

>>11417086
But doesn't that seem a little shallow? I don't know. Maybe it's because I genuinely dislike democratic regimes and I feel they lack a sense of mystique. Not to mention that the whole nationalism thing just irks me the wrong way and I can see many ways in which it could go wrong. As fucked as the USSR was, one of the things I admire most about it is that they rarely stooped to chauvinism - there were plenty of people in the highest echelons of the regime that hadn't been born in Russia and only ended up there due to heir skill and adherence to the ideology.
However, I'm a big fan of properly done aristocracies, though I'm very much in favor of protecting your subjects and making sure they have all their needs met - so great public schooling, welfare, healthcare, etc.. A benevolent autocracy, I suppose. But these might be my own emotional biases getting in the way.
You said you don't come here often - have you read Moldbug? I feel much of what he says resonates with me, at least as far as the criticism of democratic power is concerned. He's not a very deep thinker and I don't agree with much else of what he has to say, but I think he's worth checking out.

>>11417122
Offtopic, im amused by how often I see people write "I like Moldbug", then qualify it with "but obviously he's wrong about x y z". I also like Moldbug and have found myself doing this. We really should just shout "MOLDBUG WAS RIGHT" from the mountaintops and fuck all this pussyfooting around, but strangely, like so many of the best thinkers of the past few centuries, he was truly Great when he said No and usually bats when he said Yes. Don't know what to make of that other than we've had a whole lot of critiques and not a whole lot of construction and the imbalance shows

Probably because so much of the constructions of the Enlightenment era turned out to be so fragile...to MM's credit he gave it an entertaining shot with Neocameralism

>>11416656
It's pretty obvious that OP never read The Capital.
Probably watchs Rick and Morty and thinks he's the reincarnation of Nietzsche LMAO.

>>11417153
who the fuck calls it "The Capital", please cease your faggotry

>>11416656
>Time and time again, you hear this Marxist critique of how capitalism is undermining of all traditional values, and that it's been an almost positive force of destruction
>almost
Marx saw capitalism a positive force. It has just come to be a restraint for humanity's potential and should make way for the next step in development.

>anything that isn't strictly materialistic
Everything is "strictly materialistic" in the last instance. That's the point.

>Even if you considered the best case scenario for them and capitalism gives way to socialism, so fucking what? Literally what will change? Nothing. Nothing at all. The same philosophical questions will remain and continue to fill what counts for the meaning of life for most people.
Not true. "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." The philosophical questions that people posit themselves in a given period of time depend on their real life circumstances. For example, there would be no such thing as existentialism and the so-called "inherent" meaninglessness of life if it wasn't for capitalism splitting us into isolated individuals facing off against a world of uncontrollable forces such as "the invisible hand of the market" or the supposed magical powers inherent to commodities, especially money, the commodity par excellence. In fact, existentialism's very conception of the individual wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the economic system alienating us from our social nature as a human being.

>>11417135
I think my biggest problem with him is that feels very insincere - not to mention the Star Wars and meme references are super cringe now. If Moldbug isn't the ultimate cringelord, I don't know who is.
But yeah, I feel like many of the things he talks about could've been accomplished already, like the alternative Wiki he spoke of. But what has he done? Nothing. He hasn't even bothered to make his website as welcoming as possible or to expand his audience.
I guess he is a lot like critical theorists - at the end of the day he just goes back into the system and does his thing, with no real intention of changing things up.

>>11417159
Everyone. Suck my dick faggot.

>>11417165
I will punch your dick off with my balls if you keep talking in this thread, fucking try me

>>11416656

I agree. It's even worse when they put Marx into a shotgun wedding with Freud so that they can simply appeal to another system whenever holes appear in dialectical materialism.

>>11417167
1v1 me motherfucker

I actually think anarcho-communism fixes all the Marxist BS.

>>11417163
Say no more friend https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/

But yeah, don't worry too much about who is doing what or isn't. If you look at the history and evolution of ideologies its never a straight line from theory to implementation.
I would caution against trying to change things before you have a real plan. Don't act, think, and all that, after all it was Marx who said "the point is not to understand the world, but to change it" and frankly had he not had that attitude we'd have been better off.

>>11417179
It can't fix international reaction.

>>11417160
>Everything is "strictly materialistic" in the last instance. That's the point.
So are you saying any kind of spiritual practice, contemplation, or even the study of metaphysics is without value? Or are you simply advocating for naturalism?
> For example, there would be no such thing as existentialism and the so-called "inherent" meaninglessness of life if it wasn't for capitalism splitting us into isolated individuals facing off against a world of uncontrollable forces such as "the invisible hand of the market" or the supposed magical powers inherent to commodities, especially money, the commodity par excellence. In fact, existentialism's very conception of the individual wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the economic system alienating us from our social nature as a human being.
I don't agree with this. Sure, existentialism had a historical development, but are you seriously saying no people in the past ever had similar thoughts? Or that a similar philosophy couldn't arise in a different world from ours, perhaps one that doesn't have anything resembling capitalism?
I think there's very little truth to what you've said - it's dogmatic as can be. Whether or not you've been atomized, questions pertaining to the meaning of life always arise so long as you're conscious, not to mention that a new consciousness didn't suddenly arise with the dawn of modernity (sorry, but I'm not a Hegelian). I feel this is all very arrogant to say and dismissive of the ancients, not to mention all the possibilities out there.

>>11417179
Anarchism is more formidable than Marxism, but I don't think it truly generalizes, its not something we're likely to see massively adopted but I do think it is workable for particular people who are committed to it and understand that living in a nonhierarchical system is actually a struggle against the grain. Have you read Woodcock's overview? I adore it, it expresses well the strange intersection of revolution and reaction that anarchism ought to be.

Marxian analysis of the material world is often spot on. On a higher level, Lacanian psychoanalysis coupled with Marxian understanding of the material world is a very solid theory on human desires and the organising of societies.

What Marxism fails at is explaining a higher level than the material.

>>11417182
No, no, I know his writings exist online, I'm just saying he could've done a better job of putting them out there. He could've hired a sultry temptress to record every single blog and post them on every platform that there is. It probably wouldn't even cost that much. So, not much initiative on his part, honestly.
And I'm not even saying that I want to go out there and implement his stupid ideas, I'm just saying that I find it annoying that so many people talk about doing things or what should be done, only to go back into their shells a moment later.

>>11417172
You fucked up mate, meet me on the Pillars of Eternity 2 builds subforum in one hour, I'm going to make you into a reactionary anarchist then I'm going to show you how to make a fucking sick Trickster/Shifter build

>>11417199
>What Marxism fails at is explaining a higher level than the material.
I suppose that what I meant to say in the OP but failed is that I'd argue the things at a higher level than the material might be more worthwhile looking into than the things at the ground level, so long as the ground level isn't completely unbearable shit.
Socialism has no real soul.

>>11417205
Its a bit of a personality thing, unfortunately its true that people given to a lot of reflection are not often also natural leaders of men. And what the world in general seems to lack at the moment is leaders, but hell if I know how to fix that

>>11417097
I'm sure he does. I really just meant that that aspect of Marxism grinds against me. This is the essay I read where Johnson mentions Gramsci and talks extensively on the apparently Gramscian idea of hegemony. It's about all I know of Gramsci himself, other than some light wikipedia skimming I did after reading the essay, so I can't really talk extensively about Gramsci at this point in time.
https://www.counter-currents.com/2011/08/hegemony/
>>11417122
If it seems shallow, it's because I'm focusing on the economics and less emotional aspects of fascism, because I'm in a thread about Marx, and Marxists are notoriously concerned with economics over everything else. The emotional aspect of domestic fascism is positive and beautiful, and better seen than described. The imperial aspect of fascism is something I don't think is necessary in all contexts, and obviously from an emotional standpoint is either sordid or triumphalist. As far as outsiders being able to rise to the tops of the ranks, I don't think that's necessarily a good thing for either the nation receiving or losing that talent in the long run. The loss of talent is an obvious negative for the "other nation" and doesn't need explanation. The negative aspect of receiving foreign talent is best explained as the displacement (even on a small scale) of the indigenous people, who will resent being ruled by foreigners, or in the case of i.e, importing Indian doctors, actually creates a class or caste of foreigners that are in an economic advantage over the indigenous working class. I'm getting into thought that revolves around human (and animal) nature though, and I find leftists to not always be on board even with the concept of human nature itself, letalone my personal views about it though, so I think that disagreement would come from that if we don't establish a mutual belief in evolution and the role the social environment plays in the creation of the evolutionary environment.

I haven't read Moldguy, and sorry if I didn't address other specifics of what you were saying, but I'm looking at this wall of text above me and it already seems overbearing, so I'll cut it off here.
>>11417179
If by anarcho-communism, you mean "creating small communities based on communist principles that are non-hierarchical within the current order", I think that has feasibility. If you mean to somehow stop hierarchy from asserting itself on any larger playing field, I don't understand the possibility factor.
>>11417199
Marxism may have just replaced the traditional superworlds of christianity, paganism, rationalism, scientism, and any combinations of the above with it's own superworld of Marxist theory and anarcho-utopia.

>>11417209
>pillars of eternity 2
Quite possibly the biggest disappointment of the decade.

>>11417215
Socialism is inherently materialistic though. The problems it tries to fix are problems on the ground. The proletarians whom Marx sought to encourage to revolution did not care about soul, so to speak, their problems were more immediate.

>>11417219
What about immigrants who indigenize to the dominant culture and provide a positive benefit?

>>11417219
Well, if you feel like reading Marxists for whatever reason, I can say Gramsci is a pretty good place to start. You could always just jump into Das Kapital but its relevance to the current situation is unclear, mostly its people not super broadly read in other economic theories who still think otherwise. I quite liked the Johnson article and feel vaguely like I had seen it before. Certainly the Nouvelle Droite describes itself openly as "right wing gramscians" unless Im misremembering

>>11417221
Aside from your life maybe

>>11417228
Right, I get that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a lot of those problems no longer seem that immediate. Right now, you could go study byzantine metaphysics with relative ease and even get them distributed to whoever you wish without worrying about working in a factory 18h a day. Thus, many of the things they say don't seem that urgent to me. Obviously an anon like >>11417160 would likely say we need to advance and for that we need to see capitalism through in order to ascend to a higher level philosophically (at least, I think that's what he would say, maybe I'm misrepresenting him) but I'm not so keen on such teleology.

>>11416885
>national socialism - which at least on an economic level, actually worked
you fucking retard

>>11417219
>I haven't read Moldguy, and sorry if I didn't address other specifics of what you were saying, but I'm looking at this wall of text above me and it already seems overbearing, so I'll cut it off here.
Don't worry. I get what you're saying, but I also find points of disagreement. I don't actually think people react that badly to immigration, and in general, I think we over-estimate how important it is to people to be with others from the same area by contrasting completely different classes of people.
Case in point, the current immigration crisis. It's not hard to say that immigration is bad when all that's coming in is trash that has nothing to offer, doesn't speak the language, and generally causes problems for the natives, including an increasing rate. But it needn't be that way. Case in point, what I said above about the Soviets. The people that came in shared their thoughts, their ethics, and they were a positive addition.
In general, I think people are more likely to group up based on their ideology. I certainly feel closer to people that share my way of thinking and like the same things I like than my brainlet neighbor that just happens to be the same nationality as I am.
Nationalism is, after all, a pretty recent invention, and the internet has created vastly different landscapes for interactions and social groupings. I can only think that as the world gets more connected, that will become more apparent.
I wouldn't even say this is immigration so much as allowing people to cluster up based on their tendencies. And while it's true that grouping up with people that doesn't speak your language, don't share your customs, and in general are completely different from you is hard, it becomes a different story when societies are so far into atomization that you have more in common with a guy from thousands of kilometers away.

>>11417228
This is one of the biggest problems with Marxism as I see it. The proletarians are deeply religious people by nature. They aren't theologians or anything like that, but religious ritual and religious assumptions about the world provide them with grounding and direction in an otherwise chaotic world, and religious-idealistic assumptions make the hard work and self-sacrifice that high achievement (including all civilization) is built upon possible and desirable in the first place.
>>11417236
Well, even 100 or so of the darkest blacks in some small white country could be genetically assimilated over time if they also culturally assimilated and were spread out enough so as not to form their own communities. Realistically, that's not the problem we're dealing with though, and what you're asking of me is a theoretical consideration that can be dealt with after solving the much more dire problem of mass immigration, which is destructive to both the culture and genetics of the host populations, and only benefits the immigrants and the descendants of the immigrants themselves in the long-term, and the people who financially benefit the most from bringing in immigrants to fill labor shortages without increasing the price of labor.
>>11417273
National socialism healed Germany from the wreckage of WWI and was destroyed by a superior force, not necessarily by superior economic systems. (The Capitalist USA and Communist USSR fought together against Germany after all).

>>11417248
Funny, but it really was terrible. I spent the whole of PoE 1 thinking we would get to Eothas' story, then spent years dreaming PoE 2 would revolve around him, only to have him ruined in the most retarded main story I've seen in recent years.
That's what you get when you cuck and shit on your most talented writer and keep promoting women to lead your projects, I guess.

>>11417273
Explain how that's wrong.

>>11417285
I think the emphasis on ideology as a grouping mechanism might not be universally true. Not to get too wildly pseud here but there's a contest between family and ideology that goes on, where things like ethnos or race can be thought of as extended kinship/preference for semblance and things like Marxism or Christianity are ideological. Nationalism is an interesting case because its primarily ideological, but it emphasizes kinship as a feature of its ideology; could be why it spread with such incredible ease through European populations that had been used to coexisting with an ideological identity (Christian, or more recently Catholic/Protestant)

>>11417301
Yeah admittedly the story is garbage, but the multiclassing has kept me interested and trying to solo POTD is great fun at the moment. I hate every single party member except maybe Eder but since im solo running it doesnt matter

>>11417303
ever heard about something called WW2? basing their economy on invading neighboring countries didn't really work out for the g*rmans

>>11417303
Did an essay in first year on Germany's economy during the Second World War. It was shit and incredibly inefficient, one of the main reasons for them losing a land war to a technologically inferior nation (no, muh orcish horde zerg rush was not why Germany lost against the USSR). Albert Speer was the only decent planner in the Nazi war machine and even that wasn't enough. Fascist economic theory just didn't work

>>11416694
But to be clear he's not saying the Cultural Revolution was a good thing in this clip. He's simply saying it brought about the "capitalist explosion". That's hardly a defense of it.

>>11417313
>I think the emphasis on ideology as a grouping mechanism might not be universally true.
Oh, I would never disagree with that. I mean, families are you said are a big problem with that, as are low IQ people that aren't likely to even have an ideology beyond what they were exposed to as they grew up.
But considering they aren't killing authorities en masse in Sweden and Germany today, in societies that actively mock them, I find it hard to believe they'd make a big fuss of bringing in a low number of cultivated immigrants, especially when most of their needs are provided for.
Still, I think there's a great value in people that genuinely love a way of life wanting to band together to protect it. For example, like those that fall in love with a country that isn't theirs and want to go live there. I see nothing wrong with that at all.
I'm tired and I'm kind of all over the place, but I hope you understand what I mean - I wouldn't want a world of closed borders, and I'm not particularly worried of how the lower classes would react, since they're usually docile when cared for.
Generally, I would prefer small city states that could ideally assimilate newcomers (that are fit to be a part of them) with ease, and that would just as easily release their own to go join another. Even if it doesn't become a system that encompasses the whole globe, I want to believe something like this will exist one day .

>>11417243
I'll probably be reading gramsci, but I have stacks on stacks on stacks, and I've been wanting to take a break from politics and read some fiction as well lately, so I bet it'll be a while until I get around to him. He seems like an interesting fellow though.
>>11417285
>The people that came in shared their thoughts, their ethics, and they were a positive addition
The ethics and thoughts of Soviet communism, I would argue, are not the natural ethics of the people, but rather the stated ethics of a people under threat of oppression
>In general, I think people are more likely to group up based on their ideology
There's actually a racial component to that that Kevin McDonald talks about that has to do with Northern hunter-gatherers and the efficacy of meritocracy over ethnocentrism in the northern hunter-gatherer context. Because of their higher percentage of northern hunter-gatherer DNA, McDonald argues, Europeans, and especially northern Europeans, tend to deliniate themselves into "moral in-groups" such as Catholic or Protestant, with the same seriousness other races have towards tribe, clan, etc. That would apply to ideology as well. Because of this bias (which seems to be real regardless of whether Kmac is right about the cause) I think that whites underestimate the ethnocentrism of nonwhites, although I also would grant that there is some truth that people aren't as bothered by immigration as some would thing, with the caveat that white people specifically aren't as bothered because of a relatively low level of ethnocentrism (not that ethnocentrism is completely absent from whites). The problem with immigrant communities chiefly is THEIR resilience, non-assimilation, fertility, view of themselves as separate, etc. rather than how the indigenous population feels about it. There are Muslim child grooming gangs in England exploiting white girls specifically as a form of conquest regardless of whether or not the average English person has a positive view of diversity, race-blind meritocracy, immigration, etc.
>Nationalism is, after all, a pretty recent invention
I see nationalism as a compromise between empire and petty kingdoms, but ultimately stemming from the same ancient source. If nations weren't necessary for providing the amount of force necessary to resist empire, I would be in favor of smaller sovereignties, but since people "can't just get along", nationalism is preferable.
>societies are so far into atomization that you have more in common with a guy from thousands of kilometers away.
Yeah, but then again, we could wonder about how recent this phenomenon is. I think it's always been a problem for intellectuals to be alienated, and if the internet existed way back when, they would be connecting with people across the world as well.

>>11417160
>"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."
Sounds like classic Tabula rasa which has been absolutely BFTO by science. You marxists like to call your theories scientific, yet whenever there are new scientific discoveries that go against or disprove your axioms and theories you either ignore, downplay or dismiss them as "bourgeois propaganda".

>In fact, existentialism's very conception of the individual wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the economic system alienating us from our social nature as a human being.
Here we go: "MUH ALIENATION. During teh age of primitive communism, before technological progress and the division of labour created this dreadful and oppressive mode of productiion, people lived true to their social nature, they experienced TRUE HUMAN EMOTIONS unlike now where everyone and everything is fake and alienated from each other. All these baddie-no-good things like depression, mental illness; melancholy, existenialism, sexism, racism, discrimination, people enforcing hirarchies on each other etc... will all be gone once the class contradiction will be solved by the heroic proletariat and the people will live happily in harmony through non-oppressive cooperation and altruism."

>>11416656
>If that's not tunnel-vision, I frankly don't know what is.
It absolutely is. And the funny thing is that these people will accuse others who don't share their dogmatic beliefs of suffering from "false consciousness". Marxism is a teleological cult.

>>11417366
I mostly agree, while I do think we've been extraordinarily incautious with our immigration policies I'm not opposed to it in principle. I feel like I grew up with my identity tied up in ideas and preferences ("capital's a bitch" quiet marxist) and not in kinship, I suspect in the past I'd have been a Christian and not a German if you understand what I mean. A problem I think it should be straightforward to fix if we actually had the will to do it is the ideological identity of cosmopolitans is predicated on poking the lower class with a stick and laughing at them, which is so remarkably stupid I can't believe it took until 2016 to bite us

>>11417367
>The ethics and thoughts of Soviet communism, I would argue, are not the natural ethics of the people, but rather the stated ethics of a people under threat of oppression
All I'm saying is, the Soviets were a lot less chauvinistic than the Nazis were (and even the liberal countries), and I appreciate it.
> I think that whites underestimate the ethnocentrism...
Well, I'm not even saying it would necessarily have to be people from other parts of the world. A free Europe that allowed for this would be more than enough for me. Still, I generally am skeptical of evolutionary psychology, though it has merits.
>I see nationalism as a compromise between empire and petty kingdoms, but ultimately stemming from the same ancient source. If nations weren't necessary for providing the amount of force necessary to resist empire, I would be in favor of smaller sovereignties, but since people "can't just get along", nationalism is preferable.
But we are kind of heading to that world. I mean, assuming China won't gobble us all up. In fact, Moldbug who I mentioned earlier does a good job of showing how the international laws have changed over the last few centuries. As it stands, you can't just start a war with a country and take their territory as in the olden days. I don't think it's very likely that if we got a bunch of petty states in Europe that they'd suddenly start butchering each other for an increase in territory. In fact, I would foresee relief. They would finally be left to their own devices.
>Yeah, but then again, we could wonder about how recent this phenomenon is. I think it's always been a problem for intellectuals to be alienated, and if the internet existed way back when, they would be connecting with people across the world as well.
No doubt, but even back then intellectuals traveled freely, and kings and emperors welcomed them and made them a part of the foreign court.

Marxism is by definition to its core autistic since it is a system which believes that rational deliberation can overcome all existing and social realities
Much like an autist who thinks everything should change to suit his own autistic preferences the Marxist goes on his wanton way with all of society only to his later mishap and embarrassment

>>11417194
>So are you saying any kind of spiritual practice, contemplation, or even the study of metaphysics is without value?
I'm saying that spiritual practice, contemplation, or even the study of metaphysics always takes place in the historical context of a given mode of production and is highly dependent on it. (I avoid using the expression "determined by it" since many people interpret this as saying there exists a clear and simple causal relationship between "determined" and "determining" factors. That's one of the main errors that is committed by a large partof Marx' critics.) In a way it is very similar to Nietzsche taking recourse to individuals' psycho-physiological condition to explain their morality, their conceptions of good and evil.

>are you seriously saying no people in the past ever had similar thoughts? Or that a similar philosophy couldn't arise in a different world from ours, perhaps one that doesn't have anything resembling capitalism?
As said above, the whole structure-superstructure relation is very complicated. Similar societies might share similar worldviews. A class under one mode of production might find itself in a similar position to a different class in another, thus leading to similar mindsets. I guess the best example is all the parallels between late Roman society and capitalism and the huge influence of Roman law on contemporary (continental european) civil law. And of course, different modes of social being aren't thrown from the stars, they always build on previous systems, as do humanity's ideas. You say you are not a Hegelian, but I feel his concept of Aufheben is central here. A bit of every "stage" of humanity is conserved in the following.

>questions pertaining to the meaning of life always arise so long as you're conscious
Perhaps, but they would certainly take a different form.

>not to mention that a new consciousness didn't suddenly arise with the dawn of modernity
New consciousnesses constantly arise with changing societal circumstances, as any anthropologist will tell you.

>I feel this is all very arrogant to say and dismissive of the ancients, not to mention all the possibilities out there.
The ancients were products of their times and circumstances, just as we are. If anything, putting things into context allows one to admire individual people's genius even more.

>>11416656
Using buzzwords that you dont understand on /lit ?
Get the fuck out, attenyion whore

>>11417373
>Sounds like classic Tabula rasa which has been absolutely BFTO by science.
It is exactly the opposite. Humans are born into pre-existing modes of social being that determine their way of thinking i.e. also your personal, very narrow conception of science.
I won't go into detail about your second "point" since it is mostly a strawman. Nobody can claim that communism will magically fix all of society's ills from one day to the next just like nobody in their right mind can say that those ills are in no part caused by our economic system.

>>11417464
>attenyion

Found the spic

>>11417402
>A free Europe that allowed for this would be more than enough for me
That's basically what the United States and Canada are, or were. Europeans generally can assimilate with other Europeans (culturally, genetically they're already very similar), so it's less of a problem. England still does have a problem with un-assimilating Poles though, from what I've heard.
>No doubt, but even back then intellectuals traveled freely, and kings and emperors welcomed them and made them a part of the foreign court.
I'm all for hospitality.

>>11417439
>I'm saying that spiritual practice, contemplation, or even the study of metaphysics always takes place in the historical context of a given mode of production and is highly dependent on it.

Imagine regurgitating this and actually thinking you're actually saying something interesting or profound

>>11417467
>in no part caused by our economic system.
How do you know what parts are caused by the economic system and what parts have always been around?

>>11417439
Okay, I think I need to revise my stance a little and be a bit clearer with what I mean.
I'm not trying to say that think and feel as an Athenian did. But what I would say is that the central questions pertaining to existence remain the same, and that the answers to those questions don't require a specific advance in human society.
Does that make more sense? And that's what I mean by saying that I'm by no means a Hegelian. Yes, people would likely come up with different answers to the question "Why does anything exist?" or "Where does everything come from?" depending on the culture they come out of.
But the way I see it, this can go one of two ways.
One, any answer is as good as any other so long as it makes sense within that society. (Which instinct tells me isn't correct.)
Two, the answers are perennial and available for anyone to find, and thus could be answered just as well in an oikos by the agora as they woud be in a cafe in downtown Paris.
Would you disagree? Because I'm not sure whether you're saying these questions have no real answers and are irrelevant, or whether you're suggesting they'll only be answerable at a certain stage.
I'm going to sleep now, but if the thread is alive tomorrow and you respond, I'd like to continue this back and forth.

>>11417476
If this was commonplace we wouldn't have 5 threads a day about whether a given thinker had discovered the final and eternal truths of the universe.

>>11417493
Mostly by historical studies, though comparative studies might be conducted of still existing, lesser developed societies and our own.

>>11417503
>Would you disagree? Because I'm not sure whether you're saying these questions have no real answers and are irrelevant, or whether you're suggesting they'll only be answerable at a certain stage.
That's a tough one. "Early" Marx seems to have thought there to be a mode of production in concordance with humanity's "species-essence", that mode of production being the "free association of producers" i.e. communism. Now some Marxists, especially of the Hegelian variety, have taken this to mean only in this mode of being, communism, is it possible to grasp the true nature of reality. A very teleological conception stemming from their heavy debt to Hegel. This Hegelian conception of Marxism has been thoroughly critizised, especially by pointing out the aversion that "late" Marx had towards the idea of eternal truths. Now I'm personally very fond of Hegel and find this teleological conception of human development towards final revelation a very comforting idea, but I don't think it can hold up to philosophical scrutiny. I need to think this through and maybe read some more Hegel, but at the moment, if I'm being honest with myself, I'd say I reject the concept of "perennial answers", whether they can be known now or at any point in the future.
Good night anon, whether this thread will be up in the morning or not, I enjoyed talking to you. Our conversation has unironically made me think hard about my personal convictions, especially when it comes to this last question.

>>11416656
Yes, yes it is.

>>11417086
What books on fascism would you recommend?

>>11417467
"pre-existing modes of social being" is the exact moment it was clear you're a charlatan

Yes, OP, everything you say is true.

What is wrong with this? What exactly is wrong with interpreting the universe in a strictly materialist sense?

>>11416656
Marxism is talmudic judaism, nothing more, nothing less.

>>11418067
Don't conflate materialism as in "everything is one kind of thing, matter, and the higher levels of material combination are determined by the lower", which may or may not be true, but you can believe thats true without accepting Marx. Marx takes the cultural/religious/political level of phenomena and says it rests on the lower level of economic production and consumption. In truth there are way too many feedback loops between various levels to actually make that claim strictly true, not too mention that at that time we really did have a rather straightline way of thinking about things that neglected how probabilistic the universe actually is (ironically, this is decently explained by Marxism, a mechanistic way of thinking being in some sense determined by the industrial revolution). Its a low-resolution model of events that he sells as a science, but its far from useless. He then tries to apply this way of thinking to uncover the way what he calls capitalism will proceed in the future. You can read it and judge those predictions for yourself

Just curious, how are white/non-jewish Marxists these days dealing with the dissonance of being useful idiots and tearing apart their own society for benefit of semites who view them as slaves and cattle?

>>11418169
Got bored of blacked threads on /pol/?

>>11416716
Have you not simply supplanted an ideology shaped by a libido articulated via the discursive logic of a late capitalist desiring-production with an ideology rooted in Judeo-Christian will-abnegation and dogmatic deferral to either a praxis or a leader espousing the praxis through a power-hierarchy comparable to social structures in a capitalist society?
>bootlicker

>>11418201
Fuck you've got us there, I knew it was a mistake keeping the desiring-producers so close to the will-abnegators, now my praxis fucking sucks dick

>>11417303
How about the time when in the first year of Nazi government they began issuing IOU notes to be able to function

>>11417122
>Maybe it's because I genuinely dislike democratic regimes and I feel they lack a sense of mystique.

>>11418207
>not understanding Freud or Nietzsche
>...
>"what's a 'duh-looze' and 'gooatari'?"
Pseuds, everyone.

>>11418253
I haven't read D&G but being french I would >>never<< mispronounce their names, villain!
Also
>not being able to take a joke

>>11418266
Sorry, comrade. Do I get the bullet, too?

>>11418280
The only people who get the bullet are people who like the poetry section of the New Yorker

>>11418294
I was pretty sure that was a book of ads now.

>>11417690
I've only read The Doctrine of Fascism and some of George Lincoln Rockwell's (The founder of the American Nazi Party) works. Cultured Thug's youtube channel has some good "crash course" videos that I've seen, and he also has a video titled "books for fascists" if you want recommendations from someone more qualified (My job involves driving, so I often listen to these long, audio-based videos in my car). The dude has like four full bookshelves in his room, many related to fascism. CT is a fascist, but also has a few videos explaining other ideologies, like Juche and Dugin's fourth political theory. If you're American, the best book on race I know of, if you're not "redpilled" on race, is Jared Taylor's "White Identity".

>>11417690
And I haven't read it yet, but based on CT's video about it, Oswald Mosley's book "Fascism -100 Questions Asked and Answered" is extremely straightforward.

>>11416656
>Is Marxism the most autistic thing ever?
no, autism is still the winner there

>>11416656
Ayntology is more autistic

>>11417650
Hello, it seems our thread is still up.
Okay, so I have to say that I don't find that argument compelling at all. Why in the world would communism be the only mode of being in which we find answers to the deeper questions of life? I think this is way, way too anthropocentric to even stand the slightest scrutiny. Objective truths (I mean that loosely, we could be talking about metaphysical truths as well, or even moral ones) are either out there to discovered or they are not. If they seriously think communism is the only mode of being which leads to them, then what are we to say of different species that don't even resemble humans in their organization and thinking, yet are nevertheless self-conscious in the same way we are? Are we just going to be dismissive? Just too unworthy of speculating on the meaning of it all because they happened to be born as non-humans in a non-communist system? Does this sound at all fair, or reasonably likely? I'd say no.
> I'd say I reject the concept of "perennial answers"
But you still have to clarify in what way, or rather, what your real stance is. Are you saying there's nothing that's always true, or are you just saying truth depends entirely on the consciousness that's behind it? I'd like to know where you stand. I'll take the next post to explain where I'm coming from and go a bit more in depth.

>>11417650
>>11419890
For now the second thing.
I personally do think there are things out there that remain constant and can be answered by just about anyone at any time. I'm not sure what I'd define them as exactly, since saying they're objective facts doesn't quite get to what I mean, and higher truths sounds super dopey and pretentious. Let's just say truthful answers to meaningful questions...
Now, I can see what their (the people you described) answer might be to this. Yes, those answers are out there, but we need the right tools and modalities to grasp them.
I would disagree with this for two reasons, one being completely idiosyncratic and unfounded apart from my personal convictions (so sorry), the other less so (I hope).
The first is that I think it would be highly unethical to live in a world of a special snowflake generation. To think that we are somehow approaching a civilizational peak (or would need to, in theory), only to look back at those brainless apes that helped us along the way and thank them for our contribution seems very harsh. Now, there might be some wacky attempts at reconciliation to be made here, perhaps by playing around with the nature of time itself, or even appeals to time travel or other outlandish things. But I hope you get what my central belief here is: It's selfish and immoral to think that everyone that came before us are just complete idiots that stood no chance to grasp life.
The second point I'd like to make is that it's very possible to hit on right ideas and grasp that they're closer to the truth long before there's any evidence for them. So, let's say the Big Bang, and the universe having a starting point. Whether or not this turns out to be true or far more complicated than we know isn't what I'm focused on - what I would say is that it's not impossible for a person to have come up with this notion without knowing the slightest thing about physics, or anything that's the product of modernity. Nor would it be unthinkable for a society to take in these ideas and make them fundamental because they "feel" right. If anything, all the evidence from the past shows that humans have a surprising ability at intuiting what's true, even if they have no idea what they're talking about. So many myths and so much of early philosophy came close to things we take true as today. Of course, I'm not saying even that most of them did that, but that enough did. I guess that's ultimately my point - our capacity for creativity is really beyond the confines of one specific period in time. Likely, many things we can't begin to imagine as mainstream scientific truth that will turn up in the next few centuries of thought will have been prefigured in some way or another in ancient texts, simply because people are so bizarrely creative they tend to cover all grounds.
This is why, even leaving aside the absurdity of unabashed anthropocentric, I completely reject that view.
Here, a waifu in thanks for reading all of this.

bump

>>11417215
what someone like >>11417439 might say is that it's hopeless to try and get obective truths out of your subjective experience. All ideas are tied to their context. How come the japanese concept of beauty itself is so different from the western one? It's no coincidence that it developed there and not here, now that doesn't make them worthless, so much as we can perceive beauty, but only non-objective.

>>11421331
Are you proud of yourself for typing out such a weak argument? I'm not even sure whether to respond, because I can't even tell if you're serious.