/lit/ - Literature

socially conservative socialists are consistently the best and most interesting voices

>>12919959
He's criminally underrated.

>>12919959
no, i'm still forcing myself through the greek memes, page by page. it takes so much time and all the books that i'm really interested in have to wait until i finished reading these ancient cum guzzlers.

He knows the psychology of the Boomer better than anyone alive, and reading him might make you self-aware enough not to follow in their miserable wake - a path that's pretty much the default one now in America.


Also, i'll post the obligatory reference to the Last Psychiatrist, a blogger who brings Lasch's concepts into the 21st century
https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/10/the_story_of_narcissus.html

>everyone I don't like is a narcissist.

>>12920710
narcs are to reddit what jews are to pol

>>12920715
This.

once again our lord and savior is correct

>>12920478
I'm surprised this isn't a more popular take, most lefties need their cummies or whatever I guess

>>12919959
Lasch’s ideas have applied to every era of technological advancement throughout history. These are common sentiments that are repeated. This dude is literally an old man shaking his cane. Fuck off and suggest some real literature

>Our growing dependence on technologies
Aaaaand stopped reading. I'm tired of Ted-type boomers decrying technological growth as if using advanced tools isn't what defined mankind since the dawn of fucking history. Go be an irrelevant dinosaur somewhere else.

>>12920851
retard

>>12920788
What ideas did Ted have that Nietzsche or Heidegger didn't already elaborate on? If Ted didn't kill people his thoughts wouldn't have been noteworthy. Not even saying he's wrong just that he's unoriginal.

>>12920874
>man is defined by his tools

hmmm...

>>12920693
I've read this maybe a dozen times over the years and still don't know for sure what to make of it. Can you help me out?

Narcissus never found something to love in the external world (say, an objective goal or a hobby or a job or a woman or whatever). And as a consequence(?) of this, when he saw a reflection of himself in the pool, he fell in love with what he saw (his identity?). What he saw was a reflection, but also a projection, as everything he saw -- lacking objective criteria of value(?) -- was only his own self-image / rumination / narcissistic stories / whatever. In a way, his own reflection IS like an echo: he sees himself in the pool, and can't pull himself away from loving (focusing) on himself, daydreaming or analyzing, but every daydream or analysis is the result of himself looking at himself, in turn looking at himself looking at himself, without any external world or other person to create a reality, which is an echo! TLP doesn't mention this aspect, but maybe this was added by the ancients for a reason.

TLP advises to do anything but look at your reflection in the pool. That is: stop thinking about yourself and especially not your appearance, but chase after something real and objective and "lose" yourself in it. I'm following so far, and agree. But it's part four where I'm having trouble.

>She's not actually looking at Narcissus, it only looks like she's looking at Narcissus. She's actually looking-- right back at you. That's right, the story isn't about Narcissus, it was always about you. There never was an objective distance for you to watch from.
Is he saying, "we should see ourselves as potentially being Narcissus, with our own Echo"? Is he saying something more?

>The secret to the story of Narcissus is that the story is the pool, it is your pool. What do you see in it? It's a reflection and a projection.
Is he saying that our response to the story, and even our own UNDERSTANDING of the story, is always going to be a reflection and projection?

>>12920874
>Millions and millions of retards live their lives through their iPhones and modern computers
>Most of them couldn't tell you a lick of how it works, or get close to building their own PCs or whatever

The average person does not understand the tech that they use. That this technology has an easy-to-use UI does not mask the fact that the inner workings are a mystery to people. Do you think your average Joe on the street gets what's happening when he calls out for "Alexa"?

>>12920985
So, like any other time in history? Do you most people in the 1920s knew how cars worked? You think most roman soldiers knew how to cast weapons and build war machines? Humanity, apart from it's tool usage, is also defined by the distribution of knowledge and mastery. 99% of people have no need of knowing how Alexa works, as long as a handful of really smart engineers do.

>>12920817
The left was completely psy-oped some time during the late 60s and it's only gotten worse since then. The old school leftist workers' solidarity perspective is admirable but that's been completely replaced by intersectional SocJus.

>>12920882
it's actually true

>>12921024
It's an historical anomaly. Your typical layman didn't know how technology worked since the Industrial Revolution.

>>12920877
Too stupid to make an argument I see.

>>12921024
Cars are an industrial product, which is part of the criticism. Most Roman men could probably tell you the basic process by which a sword was forged. Would they be master smiths? Obviously not. But it doesn't take a genius to fold heated metal and hammer it into a roughly pointed stick. Would they know the tensile strength of a piece of wood? Probably not, but they could tell you the basic intuition behind a catapult. Compare this with a computer, or an electric car, or a phone, or an jet. Your average person could not even come close to describing intuitively what is going on in any of these things, and our day-to-day world increasingly made of them.

>>12920920
Not that guy, and I don't have all the answers, but
>Is he saying that our response to the story, and even our own UNDERSTANDING of the story, is always going to be a reflection and projection?
I think the important part is when he writes

>You're thinking whether it is true that parents create the narcissism that plagues their children for the rest of their lives. Does that match your own experiences? You're trying to remember back to your own childhood.
>Am I right?
>Which means you haven't learned the lesson. There you go again, thinking about yourself. Your impulse wasn't to say, "am I doing this to my kids?" or "how will I act differently?" It was to wonder about your own nature.
And a bit less of
>The moral of the story of Narcissus, told as a warning for the very people who refuse to hear it as such, is that how Narcissus came to be is irrelevant. What was important was what he did, and what he did---- was nothing.

What he's saying at this part, I think, is that our thoughts, even when we consider this, are still recursive. They're still self-reflective (pun necessary). When the realization hits you that you're Narcissus, that the pool is yours, you're still effectively leaning into it - looking into the eyes of your reflection, analyzing what you see ("Is this really me?", "Is this how I was raised?" "Is this why I never went to college/trade school/Hollywood?").

You're thinking all of that, rather than "Is that how I'm raising my own children?" or "Okay, from here, how will I change?". Instead of simply accepting the truth and moving on - getting up from the bank of the pond and taking the action to change yourself and your behaviors, you simply stare deeper and deeper, hoping to find some truth in the nothingness of your reflection rather than looking at the actual truth of what you're doing and fixing it. Changing it. Splashing a hand into the pool and watching the ripples destroy what you just saw until its unrecognizable.

>>12921121
>Most Roman men could probably tell you the basic process by which a sword was forged. Would they be master smiths? Obviously not. But it doesn't take a genius to fold heated metal and hammer it into a roughly pointed stick. Would they know the tensile strength of a piece of wood? Probably not, but they could tell you the basic intuition behind a catapult
Iron forging and siege engineering were notoriosly complicated concepts that weren't in any way, shape, or form, intuitive in most senses of the world.

>>12921161
>world
word*

>>12921124
Shouldn't someone analyze the story and his relationship to the story to see if he is a Narcissus? I mean, some reading it will be narcissists but most won't. One needs to read the story and think about it in order to determine this. Perhaps then it's something like:
>Read story -> see that you're looking too much into the pool (dwelling/reflecting on yourself too much) -> decide to spend less time doing that and more time on a hobby or helping others or whatever
versus
>Read story -> see that you're looking too much into the pool -> think about all the implications of this -> think about the implications of the implications -> think about why it has to be this way -> think about [...]
Obviously the second is bad.

TLP also writes
>You thought Narcissus rejected all those people because he was in love with himself, but he rejected them all before he loved himself. Loved himself? Do you think Narcissus rejected them because he thought he was better than them? Or better looking? How would he have known he was so beautiful? He didn't even recognize his own reflection! He rejected all those people because they loved him.

I'm following where he says a lack of love in the objective world can lead to narcissism, but what does he mean that "he rejected all those people because they loved him?" I can't make sense of this part at all. Why does narcissus reject them because they love him? Where does this come into play?

>>12921161
They're complicated if you want to do them well. They're skilled trades and knowing how to do them doesn't mean you can do them well. There's nothing excessively complicated about forging a basic knife that could kill a man. 2000 years ago I could walk down my street, ask a man who I'd have known and lived near my entire life for a knife, and watch him make it. This knife could serve as my entertainment and it could make me a living. If I want something like that now, say a computer, it's not so simple. I have to go to a man I've never met in a store owned by someone I don't even know exists to buy a machine that I have no idea how it works.

>>12921224
>me me me me me I me mine me I me me me me for me what bout me me me me
It's almost like the universe isn't revolving around your ass and some knowledge is bound to be outside your reach, forever.

>>12921124
While I do agree that there's an extreme to self obsession, in my experience it tends to be the more self thoughtless people that have the personality disorders. The overthinking generally suffer from anxiety.

>>12919959
self-help tier nonsense. lasch simply cannot stop spewing garbage about everything, even the most benign topics. these social commentary books are a dime a dozen.

>>12921224
>They're complicated if you want to do them well. They're skilled trades and knowing how to do them doesn't mean you can do them well. There's nothing excessively complicated about forging a basic knife that could kill a man. 2000 years ago I could walk down my street, ask a man who I'd have known and lived near my entire life for a knife, and watch him make it.
Most blacksmiths made a point about hiding how they did shit, and iron isn't some shit that melts at low tempratures. You need a specialized forge to even get it a "working" shape, which is soft enough to be hammered into shape, and that is assuming that you don't give a shit that your knife will break after 2 stabs because shit iron is very brittle.

>>12921247
>A critique on American neoliberal mentality
>slef-help
???

>>12921233
>HURRRRR UR NOT RONG BUT I DONT LIKE HOW U RITE UR POAST DURRRRR
cmon lad

>>12921257
Yes that's my point, the knife would work in a limited fashion and he could tell intuitively what went into making it. He wouldn't be a master blacksmith, he wouldn't even be an adequate one, but he would be in the right ballpark and could give you the layman's understanding. Compare this to an post-industrial society like ours. There is no "layman's understanding" of how a fucking Amazon Alexa or and iPhone works. They're nothing more than magic input-output machines. Your voice command goes in, indescribable science nonsense happens, and your music comes out.

>>12921318
To build on this, most normal people don't even have the vocabulary to describe what's going on inside of an Amazon Alexa, let alone the understand of the process.

>>12921191
>I can't make sense of this part at all. Why does narcissus reject them because they love him? Where does this come into play?

From my reading, I think it comes back to this:
>They didn't teach him how to resist temptation, how to deal with lack. And they most certainly didn't teach him how NOT to want what he couldn't have. They didn't teach him how to want.
>The result was that he stopped having desires and instead desired the feeling of desire.

Narcissus does not know desire, or want - he was given everything he wanted, and in a sense, this leads to his rejection of all those who love him. There was nothing for them to give him because he didn't want their love. He didn't know he wanted love at all. They couldn't give him what he wanted: the idea of wanting. The desire for desire. He gets nothing from their love, because he doesn't want it, because he doesn't know what want is in the first place: he is raised given everything he wished for, or having those things taken in a way that leads to him no longer wanting them anyway.

>>12921239
>While I do agree that there's an extreme to self obsession, in my experience it tends to be the more self thoughtless people that have the personality disorders. The overthinking generally suffer from anxiety.
And what is anxiety based in, usually?
>Am I enough for these people?
>Am I performing well?
>Will I fuck up here?
>How will I make sure people see me how I want to be seen?
And so on. Look at all those "I's". It's all based in narcissism still. Just maybe a "higher" one, because your intelligence gives you a modicum of self-awareness. The "thoughtless" girl doing her makeup is doing it for all of those same "I" questions, even if she doesn't have the self-awareness or knowledge to understand that that's why she's doing them. "Oh, everyone else is", she says, but what she doesn't say is "So I have to, or else", and that's only because she can't see it that way.

>>12921341
But it must be more, because TLP's actionable advice is to "do something" -- that's the cure. So what's the relationship between the out-of-self action, narcissism, and "rejection because they love you"?

If it's only a matter of how he was raised, and now he's goosed, then TLP couldn't give any actionable advice at all.

There must be something more. Is it that, not having a healthy ability to desire in the face of lack, he instead instantly fulfills the lack through daydreaming? That is, a healthy person will maintain the desire without excess anxiety and pursue its satisfaction. The Narcissus, though, not being able to maintain a healthy desire in the face of lack, must quickly "satisfy" the desire through daydreaming instead of action? Thus a habit is formed and he falls in love with the daydreaming, which is really the projection and reflection of himself, at the expense of reality.

I don't know. It's still not clicking.

>>12920788
Ted was the street team.

>>12921377
I suppose I get where you're having trouble, because I can't really explain it well myself. Maybe there's simply some middle ground between desiring, daydreaming, and giving those up for the ease of the reflection. Maybe it's as simple as Gatsby's Green Light on the pier - it was the idea of Daisy that spurned him on, but was he not a total narcissist? Although the ending, and how they get there, is fairly different for Gatsby and Narcissus.

Or maybe it's some play between
>"He'll have a long life as long as he never knows himself."
>Oh, he was right: Narcissus did live a long life-- though not a happy one. He spent his life alone, dreaming, and gazing into a pool, waiting to die.
and
>But Tiresisias's prophecy seems... wrong, counter to the Greek spirit, an affront to logic; shouldn't "knowing thyself" be the highest virtue?
>But it's so simple, the explanation. It's so simple that no one has ever thought of it
>You cause him to be tested: this is the kind of person you are, you are good at this but not that. This other person is better than you at this, but not better than you at that. These are the limits by which you are defined. Narcissus was never allowed to meet real danger, glory, struggle, honor, success, failure; only artificial versions manipulated by his parents. He was never allowed to ask, "am I a coward? Am I a fool?" To ensure his boring longevity his parents wouldn't have wanted a definite answer in either direction.

I think what he's saying here is this: the secret really is knowing thyself, and thus seeing yourself in an actual light, both the good and the bad. Narcissus, as mentioned, hadn't even recognized his own reflection. He grows up not knowing himself: his abilities and what he's inept at; his success and his failures. The secret is seeing yourself, your actual self, and not whatever comes from infinitely looped reflections.

Narcissus rejects that love because he doesn't know himself. Yes, he lives a long life - a long, dull, boring life, in love with nothing but himself, because he doesn't actually know himself. He is as much a stranger to himself as Echo was to him - and in Echo he sees the emptiness that fills him.

So perhaps it's more about having as close to an objective view of yourself that you can have. You have to know yourself, without getting caught in the trap of the pond. You have to BE Nemisis standing behind yourself, challenging yourself, and not the you who takes the bait and stares into the pond. Nemesis and Narcissus are thus both sides of the same coin
>Without Nemesis, there'd be no story of Narcissus. Without your nemesis, you don't have a story..

>>12920881
>Not even saying he's wrong just that he's unoriginal
"I hope that the reader will bear with me when I recite arguments and facts with which he may already be familiar. I make no claim to originality. I simply think that the case for the thesis stated above is convincing, and I am attempting to set forth the arguments, new and old, in as clear a manner as possible, in the hope that the reader will be persuaded to support the solution here suggested—which certainly is a very obvious solution, but rather hard for many people to swallow. "
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-progress-versus-liberty

>>12920874
Please don't throw Ted along this pseud of OP post. They may sound similar but Ted, by virtue of his life path alone, is more credible.

>>12920920
>TLP advises to do anything but look at your reflection in the pool. That is: stop thinking about yourself and especially not your appearance, but chase after something real and objective and "lose" yourself in it.
Classic boomer advice. According to ((psychologists)) every single thinker should be categorized as a narcissist.

>>12921377
>There must be something more. (...)
Very insightful, anon. Narcissist suffers not from excessive ego or self involvement, but from a deficient one. He's confined to an early developmental stage and is increasingly anxious when relating to others because he wants them to fill his proto-needs.
You wouldn't call a 2yo toddler that wants his mother's attention a narcissist. Well, many people never escape that stage and not only do they suffer, they hear the normie scorn about how "narcissistic" they are all the time

>>12920851
Those advancements are bringing us into greater and greater powerlessness. Yes, we've always had advancements, but each new advancement has more effects on human society than the last.

>>12921024
The point is it's getting worse and worse at an exponentially increasing rate. In the 1920s people could actually service their own cars, unlike today because cars are so complicated now. In the Roman era it was possible to create weapons and tools with far less effort than is required with the global supply chains and manufacturing hubs. Things are getting more and more disconnected from the human origins. Soon we'll be left behind, and if that's good by you, fine, but to people who see what's happening and understand the implications, it's something else.

>>12921257
>>12921161
Still easier than the modern manufacturing processes.

>>12920874
Take the growing censorship trend on facebook, twitter, other social media for example. Electronic social media has increasingly taken over our public squares, print newspapers, and French salons as nodes of public discourse. If you're cut out of them what alternative do you really have to disseminate your ideals on public policy that's effective?

The technology is growing faster than the culture that properly understands and absorbs it.

>>12921744
>The technology is growing faster than the culture that properly understands and absorbs it.
Technology was always also used as a tool of power leverage (most notoriously in wars), so why complain about it now?
For all intents and purposes, 99% of humanity is now subservient to few guys pulling the levers.

The only exception are few fanatical pacifists, and Ted demonstrated it is pointless - giving up the tools is losing all the meager fighting chances you had within the system.

https://files.catbox.moe/r95czn.mp4

>>12921636
Only that those toddlers in adult bodies contribute to other people's suffering, because their lives are over-saturated with themselves to the point they can't see others as autonomous beings who hurt too, constantly overstepping their boundaries and parasitically using them to magnify themselves (for the narcissist to feel good, you either have to be diminished or your good qualities appropriated as their own possessions).
If you try to tell a narcissist that they hurt you, they will focus on how you're accusing them and saying something negative about them instead. Zero accountability and no concern for others. Psychologically speaking, they are solipsists operating with an impoverished representation of other people's reality, which is why in interactions with them, you are implicitly dehumanized.
The narcissistic stage is characterized by an inflated sense of self. With such an inflated sense of self inhabiting the world, the narcissist is very vulnerable, wide-open for attack and he's compensating by trying to appear invincible. But he never steps into a dialogue with others, they're just basically means for auto-suggestion, so that the narcissist can feel safe.

I don't know why he isn't mentioned more. His books are more relevant today than ever.
Technological and societal changes change the way our relations towards others are structured (now more fleeting and unsure than ever) which in turn changes the way we perceive ourselves as individuals.
Instead of internalizing certain values and following them we see the world as a huge mirror which then tells us what we are.

Facebook and social media alone make all of this even more relevant today than in 1979.
God knows what Facebook, Tinder (and 4chan) are doing to our subjectivity and ways we relate to others.

>
He was obviously wrong. It's not much technology that is having a negative toll on our lives - the advent of the internet and the decline of tv and newspapers should obviously be celebrated, the dis-intermediation of culture and communication is obviously a great thing for the mental freedom of humanity. What is really fucking us is the extension of prottie ethics onto every aspect of our life, our culture present itself as permissive but it's really quite repressive, the "freedom to do what you want" always being monodimentional. Technology, especially social media, is co-responsible, it magnifies this effect, but it isn't the prime cause

>>12920985
mic transforms your voice from analog to digital passes it onto hw chip that does some muxing/demuxing of the digital data. the data goes from hw to OS sound subsystem which is programmatically manipulated with some API, once the data is refined it goes through REST API and through the network layers to their webservice, which parses the request and bounces the answer/task back to your computer. something like that?

>>12922530

It's not technology itself he sees as bad, it's that it transformed the way society is organized and social relations function. This change in the functioning of social relations (they become ever more fleeting, unstable, unclearly defined, etc.) has bad effects in the sense that people become more self-absorbed and have to retreat into themselves to cope with the increasing instability and superficiality of the social world. The result is a (not pathological, but metaphorically speaking) 'narcissist' individual which merely uses the world as a mirror for the construction of his own self-identity.
I don't see any evidence which points to him being wrong in this precise sense.

I do however think he ignores the fact that more traditional societies can also create different kinds of unbalanced personalities. So I'm not entirely sure today is that much worse than before, even if it certainly is in certain respects.

Here's one way in which The culture of narcissism is even more relevant today:

p306:"The decline of parental authority and of external sanctions in general, while in many ways it weakens the superego, paradoxically reinforces the aggressive, dictatorial elements in the superego and thus makes it more difficult than ever for instinctual desires to find acceptable outlets. The 'decline of the superego' in a permissive society is better understood as the creation of a new kind of superego in which archaic elements predominate."

This is basically Zizeks idea that todays permissive society and lack of external, patriarchal authority creates a harsh, punitive superego inside ourselves which makes many of us more restrained, guilt-ridden and impotent than ever.
You could also see this as one of the underlying reasons why daddy Peterson is so popular today: a somewhat stern but obviously benign authority figure who gives young, insecure men the command to clean their rooms, pet their dogs and whatnot. Someone who doesn't tell them to 'enjoy' or 'be themselves' but gives them simple orders which relieve them of internal superego pressure.

>>12920817
>>12920478

Listen to Red Scare...

>>12920817
>>12920478

What you guys are kind of talking about are Paleoconservatives. I’d recommend writers like Ross Douthat and Michael Brendan Dougherty (both Catholic conservatives who are suspicious of the free market/war) and read The American Conservative.

I think that whole strand of thinking (especially among Traditional Catholics) is becoming popular again.

>>12919959
never read. im going to assume hes like all recent narcissist critiques, which are not wrong in the slightest. the thing is people confuse the ego, the self, individuation, vainness and narcissism into one thing in a strictly materialist framework, which evidently the materialist is the narcissistic.

>>12921024
Cars are used to transport persons from point A to point B. Weapons are used to kill persons. Telecommunication and social media is used to influence the connections we have with other humans. Spot any difference?

Technology has removed the need of social duty. Its not surprising. No social duty and the social starts to fall flat. You can see this at the rate men play video games or women being addicted to instagram or whatever. As it turns out, we do in fact live in a society

>>12923278

Seems like the only 'real' type of conservatism to me. It's obvious that capitalism itself generates the processes which undermine the family and traditional values.
I mean, I don't necessarily agree with it because maybe capitalism and the social change it generates is inevitable, but I don't see how any real conservative could not see where the root cause of these changes lies.

>>12923468
>Technology has removed the need of social duty
Thank god

>>12923468

'Duty' may have dissappeared, but now society's imperative is: 'enjoy!' which is part of why video games and instagram are so popular: 'have fun', 'enjoy', 'express yourself', etc.
This is the official command we get, but now the restriction to enjoy is often internalized in the form of the superego.

>>12922627
As I said in the post, the changes in society that he rightly notices are not so much the work of technology but a specific change in culture. You want to look into what is usually called "neoliberalism", specifically the Reagan/Tatcher focus on individualism ("there no such thing as society, only individuals" t. Margaret Thatcher herself) for the causes of said cultural change.
I might also add that technological determinism, be it strong or weak, is kinda bullshit. A technology obviously produces different outcomes depending on the society it's used in. Something like the Indian WhatsApp lynchings wouldn't happen in the west.

>>12923471
I mean, basically what happened after WW2 was the formation of American Modern Conservatism, which was basically an alliance between Libertarians, Traditionalists, and business/free market lovers against Soviet Communism. This was called fusionism, as espoused by Bill Buckley.

This idea was most popular with Reagan during the 80’s. Free market loving and god-fearing.

But after Reagan and the fall of Communism, with no more common enemy, we got paleoconservatives and neoconservatives. Neoconservatives brought us the Bushes and Iraqi War, along with deregulation. And the fact is there no more different then neoliberals (as we saw with many Never-Trump conservatives).

Paleoconservatives have started to see what the free market actually does to traditional social dynamics (woke capital and the like). Stuff that Lasch predicted.

Now that we have Trump, who isn’t a great paleocon but won on its ideals, we’re seeing a revival of those thoughts, that tradition isn’t supported by the free market (which isn’t necessarily an endorsement of socialism, but shows the need for strict regulations).

Tucker Carlson is probably the biggest figure right now who is starting to endorse paleocon beliefs and get rid of his former Libertarian beliefs.

Also, read Russell Kirk.

>>12923642
>as we saw with many Never-Trump conservatives
I don't see how anyone who wants to champion the ideals of western civilization would like a barely literate ape.

>>12923640

The change in culture is the result of changes in the modes of production, urbanisation, the media, etc. which are themselves the result of the industrial revolution and thus of changes in technology (and the ever increasing speed of technological change).

I'm not sure if he goes back to the nineteenth century in The culture of narcissism (he does in The true and only heaven), but the cultural change he describes is the result of the growth of corporations (as the result of Taylorism and technological changes) and urbanization. I think he's largely inspired by marxism when he regards cultural change as the consequence of changes in modes of production. It's not necessarily deterministic.

He published the book in 1979 and was mainly describing the period before neoliberalism. He focuses on the new left in particular in a certain chapter. Anything he wrote then is probably even more true in later periods though.

>>12923640
>>12923809

Too simplify it enormously:

Growth of corporations => corporate man => absent fathers + a number of other factors => problems with the superego => narcissistic tendencies

>>12923642

Interesting. I thought this conservatism which is suspicious of the free market, capitalism and big business went back to late nineteenth century populism.
I'm not American so I only know what I read in history books.

>>12921191
>I'm following where he says a lack of love in the objective world can lead to narcissism, but what does he mean that "he rejected all those people because they loved him?" I can't make sense of this part at all. Why does narcissus reject them because they love him? Where does this come into play?

Stop looking at the pool.

>>12923844
If you look at pre-WW2 politics the traditional liberal/conservative divide is a lot murkier then what we got after the war.

But yes, there was movements based on religions (especially Catholicism) I’m America that went against unrestricted Capitalism due in part of religious dogma.

There’s a great book called Conservatives Against Capitalism, here’s a review/summary:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/some-conservatives-have-been-against-capitalism-for-centuries/

The author of that review also wrote Right Wing Critics of American Conservativism.

>>12922896
Byung-Chul Han says a lot of similar stuff regarding the super-ego in our times in "Topology of Violence". Essentially, with social and societal forced discipline through violence and negativity gone in lieu of a culture of "freedom", positivism, and non-violence (negative violence, anyway), the super-ego has turned inwards, into, as you've said
>a harsh, punitive superego inside ourselves which makes many of us more restrained, guilt-ridden and impotent than ever.
By eliminating certain social restraints and removing a number of outward pressures, the super-ego has to pick up the slack, which naturally becomes twisted and, recursive, anxiety-inducing, a,depressive, and neurotic

>>12924207
See also:

GK Chesterons plan of Catholic Distributism economics.

>>12924207
>>12924220

Thank you both. I'll look into these.

>>12921191

>I'm following where he says a lack of love in the objective world can lead to narcissism, but what does he mean that "he rejected all those people because they loved him?" I can't make sense of this part at all. Why does narcissus reject them because they love him? Where does this come into play?

The people he rejects are actual people. They would, by loving him, present him with the need to genuinely act, with challenges, with tests of character. His identity would be tested which is the one single thing Narcissus cannot abide.

TLP:

>[Narcissus] was allowed to live in a world of speculation, of fantasy, of "someday" and "what if". He never had to hear "too bad", "too little" and "too late."

If you never really learn how to change yourself to get something you want, or how to abandon projects you can't reach, then it will hurt like a motherfucker the first time/few times you are rejected, when you learn you are less than you thought you were.

(It hurt like a motherfucker for most normal people but they were young and that was to be expected, it was natural. They were teenagers, at the oldest.)

The longer you avoid reality, by the principle of what goes up must come down, the harder the crash will eventually be. By the time you are Narcissus' age, maybe early 20s, you're up to a real strawberry jam splat of a landing, 3.5 from the judges, off the team.

Narcissus knows this pre-reflectively. So he rejects everything that could confront his actual self, with himself, like those pesky actual people with their actual demands on him.

Note this isn't when the dreaming starts. The dreaming is normal, kids of a certain age are all dream, but eventually you make the C team or she won't fuck you or you realise you have no interests outside of vidya. So you have two choices: the pool, or waking up.

In this analogy the pool is more of the same, it isn't something new or some carefully built structure of defence. Everyone starts out as nothing, but we get to choose when we begin becoming something. The longer you wait, the worse it gets.

In the spirit of "If you're reading it, it's for you", best of luck.

>>12920478
>zizek, anna k, houellebecq

this is clearly the most patrician ideology. chapocels and alt righters are both cringe.

>>12924443
Anna K is a complete moron.

>>12919959
nothing can be done

its over

>>12925613
It's over because the battle has already been won my friend. When Christ hanged and died on the cross, all your sins, concerns, despair died there too. Accept his message of repentance and glory awaits. You'll never despair again.

join general_lit

https://discord.gg/mAKH8aS

lit+history+philosophy+blogging+lewd

>>12924207
>>12923844
>>12923642
There should be far more paleocons and rightist socialists in politics. I think it’s what America’s ruling elites are afraid of the most. Tucker Carlson is the most notable guy, aside from Trump, who pushes this kind of ideology, and he is increasingly leftward when it comes to economics, while Trump is a pure capitalist. I think men like Tucker are the path that the American right should take, and not the “war on socialism” “COW FARTS LOL CAPITALISM ROCKS!” Conservatism that hasn’t conserved anything.

>>12926779
>There should be far more paleocons and rightist socialists in politics.
>I think it’s what America’s ruling elites are afraid of the most.
I believe the latter’s why the former never happens. Ben Shapiro and Bernie Sanders both serve the interests of Capital, and that’s why they get a platform. Democracy rocks!

>>12922530
I agree with your take on the new slave morality, but I have a hard time believing that changes of culture occur in a vacuum. What caused this explosion of materialist Protestantism in the first place?
Come to think of it, what caused the explosion of the original Protestantism?

>>12927685
Idk, seems like a lot of Paleoconservatives actually like Bernie Sanders up to an extent. Tucker Carlson even said in a interview he’s vote for Elizabeth Warren if she keeps her promise to restore a single wage = support an entire family.

>>12927685
But yeah Ben Shapiro really is just a edgy neocon. Don’t know why anyone is scared of him or takes him seriously.

>>12920985
Whats your point? Im a software dev and could explain in technical terms how most applications work, but I have no idea how some hardware like a computer screen works. Is that bad? Why should someone have to have a deep technical understanding of something to use it?

>>12926779
I think it’s less social conservatism that capitalism is scared of and more of the notion of the community spirit— Which can either be left or right. Capitalism survives on the destruction of collective identity and forcing an emphasis on the individual. “You’re not [insert specific nationality], you’re you!”, “You’re not part of the human race, you’re you!” etc.

While there’s nothing wrong with individual identity in principle, problem with this is that capitalism encourages a system we’re any individually must be measured materially rather than spiritually:

Are you a fan of a particular person’s ideas? It’s not enough to simply give them verbal support, you have to buy all their merchandise that you don’t actually need. Do you feel like you sympathise with the opposite gender more than your own? It’s not enough to simply be a good and supportive friend to people of that particular gender, you must also pay money to transition even if you don’t have any body dysphoria.

Absolutely every aspect of individuality has been commodified to the point where a spiritual and deeply held conviction for these ideas is unnecessary. This makes identity extremely malleable and meaningless, which is profitable for business. Ironically, the existence of a strong community would be more likely to strengthen rather than weaken identity, because even if a person sought to defy the collective will of the community, they would st least have their experience with that community as a foundational basis for what ever ideas they choose to subscribe to.

The point is that the key to fighting the consequences of neoliberal capitalism is not necessarily about aligning with right wing social politics, but is more simply just about strengthening the notion of the local community.

>>12928708
Do you have any ideas about how that’d come about in a major way? I agree that community is a good thing, but how do we swim against that current and decentralize without just forming communes or whatever? How do we put the cat back in the bag?
It’s been bothering me for a long time.

>>12923246
are those broads really socially conservative? they're kinda ambivalent figures

>>12928822
Get away from major cities, support local businesses, stop thinking that what you see online reflects the real world, stop caring so much about people’s opinions.

That last point might sound odd, but what I ultimately mean by that is that so much of the world today is defined by divisions based on subjective beliefs and politics. These divisions are ultimately meaningless when applied to a communal level unless they are actively attacking the immediate community), my opinion, Utopianism is the cancer of the human race and always has people drawing lines in the sand over petty bullshit. Politics should be about finding pragmatic solutions to material problems and nothing more. The problem I have with the cult of individuality we’re seeing today is that it’s killing our ability to empathise with other people. The reaction New Zealand shooting was like a caricature of the society we live in. On one side you had people supporting the shooter and his beliefs, while on the other side you had people using this as an excuse to push the gun control agenda. Neither side focused on the simple fact that society had somehow driven a man to kill 50 human beings for the sole purpose of provoking that exact kind political outcry. No one cared about the human tragedy because both sides where too busy playing politics, and this happens every time a similar kind of event happens.

>>12928708
>>12927685
I wish there were more spaces to discuss ideas like these. It’s clear that to a large portion of Americans, this is the system they would probably back the most. Our ruling elite doesn’t like it, so they would try to shut us down, but wouldn’t it be great to have some sort of organization?
>>12928822
I think a PAC akin to Justice Democrats that espoused Carlsonite-style Paloeconservatism would be a good start. Get your boy elected governor of a state and build up local communities from there.

>>12928944
radicalization is a rational response to degeneration.

Drastic, totalitarian action needs to be undertaken if we are to get the problem under control. Lasch was right in diagnosis and prescription, but it should be clear by now that the managerial elite needs to be forcibly displaced if we are to bring about a sea change in the structure of our economy and society along tory radical lines.

>>12929042
Do I agree with the forcible removal of the elite? More or less.

Do I agree with radicalism? Not entirely. What I propose is something more humanistic and with a complete rejection of ideology. Radicalism can lead to a movement quickly spiralling out of control due to an unchecked “Us vs. Them” narrative which in it’s worse cases can lead to plenty of unwarranted bloodshed. It also makes people susceptible to populist leaders who simply take advantage of the civil unrest to install their own tyrannical regime. Every single violent revolution in history has spiralled out of control in this way.

While I don’t disagree with targeting the elite, I believe those efforts should be concentrated on them with surgical precision rather than leaving it in the hands of unchecked radicals who could easily become scapegoats through senseless behaviour.

>>12928708
>the key to fighting the consequences of neoliberal capitalism is not necessarily about aligning with right wing social politics, but is more simply just about strengthening the notion of the local community

This point is where I think Lasch might be too naïve (or just too hopeful), when he said in that interview that he sees good signs in for example the return of artisanal production in northern Italy (which can be seen as a signal that a more decentralized mode of production can come about again).
I really don't think it's possible to fight capitalism by trying to return to the local community and revitalizing it. This is the lost cause which nineteenth century populism and some later movements fought for (at least according to the Dutch historian Van Rossem).
The idea of returning to a previous state always comes too late and is impossible because it's just a lot less efficient. Local communities and their ways of production, socialization, education just can't compete with the economies of scale you find in big cities.
I don't see how turning back the clock could work, it never has. (Even though I often would like it to be possible)

>>12928944
Can you really depoliticize an event like this? Of course the human toll is the most important thing, but the fact that it happened is the result of a number of factors which are often the result of choices made by a particular society.
The guy was trying to get across a political message, he acted on the basis of his own views of how society should be, so why shouldn't this be viewed in a political light?
I think his political views are dead wrong and should be condemned and his act should be viewed in the light of his views.

>>12929134
I see what you mean about neoliberal systems being far to ingrained to go back, but I guess I’m just sceptical about leaving any attempts at a revolution in the hands of far right ideologues. The last thing I want is to trade one bad system for another.

My theory is that economic restructuring might enable us to return to regionalism, but accomplishing that is no small feat.

>>12929235
There are possible economic and political developments on the horizon that do not require a fall back to some anprim lifestyle. (The future could also go badly in many ways too unfortunately. )

>>12923642
Damn nigga you smart as hell kek. Does Russell Kirk give a historical view of pre/post-Regan conservatism?

>>12923374
Cars and weapons change our relations to other people as well, friend. If everyone is in cars there's less pedestrains and public transport, so you zip from your house to work in your own private bubble instead of interacting with the world/people around you, and with weapons, something like drones completely depersonalizes war and the people you are killing just become pixels on a screen. Even something as basic as a chair changes social relations, it allows you to sit and have long form conversations with another person

>>12930461
Well, he died in ‘94 so he didn’t have awhile to write anything of length about the subject.

He was accused of anti-semitism because he said The US was only invested in the strategies of Israel when they went into the first Gulf War. The Gulf War was actually the first break post-Reagan between neo and paleo conservatives.

But Kirk is great. His book The Conservative Mind is really important to the Post-WW2 Conservative Movement. It’s what inspired Buckley to found National Review.

Kirk also wrote some pretty decent horror stories.

Want to recommend to the thread “The Best of Triumph”

They were a very conservative Catholic magazine in the 60’s.

They grew pretty extreme after abortion was legalized, saying that the US was now as evil as the USSR for allowing it.

They were very anti-war and anti-nuclear profilation. They advocated Distributism.

They thought the best model of Government was Franco’s Spain.

The Best of is a great collection of their essays.

>>12931234
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_(magazine)

>>12920681
so fucking cringe lol. reading the greeks is lits version of doing GOMAD, honestly get your own brain you loser and stop being so unbearably stupid.

>>12924424
>that pic related
TLP sharp as ever.

>>12931234
>They grew pretty extreme after abortion was legalized, saying that the US was now as evil as the USSR for allowing it.
>not realizing the US were the bad guys of the Cold War DESPITE the evils of the USSR, from day one, and that the US has been evil from day one
Sad!

>>12921777
because we are at the dawn of the age of the total system, which encompasses all and from which there is no escape or transcendence. the world transformed into an expertly managed prison camp factory farm for humans

>>12920693
>TLP
I was just re-listening to his narcissism lecture for the first time in years

>>12931407
This is an age that must be resisted, then. The healthy shall inherit the remains.

>>12927719
>what caused the explosion of the original Protestantism

Nominalism vs Realism tension that came about after Christian theologians began incorporating Greek thought in to their theology and cosmology with the rediscovery of Classical texts long after the collapse of antiquity. While Catholics outright rejected nominalism not all Protestants did, although many were just as opposed to it as the Catholics. Still it found a home in some strands of Protestantism and catalysed a descent in to secularisation while retaining vestigial Protestant values.

One thing I still don't quite understand is how to untangle the problem of narcissism in connection with the way we relate to others.
Lasch (and also TLP and others) rightly say that although today many fear intimacy, real connections, facing what you really are for the other (and instead opting for narcissistic delusions, protecting your inflated idea of yourself), we paradoxically use the world and the others as mirrors in which we have to see ourselves reflected.
So while we fear actual connection with the other, the other is still the mirror whose acknowledgement we crave to sustain our self-image. (For example in one TLP article he argues that today men have need not only of certain objects like guns, big cars, etc. to feel like men but they need other men to see them possess these fetishized objects to feel like men)

How can one untangle this? I know I think like this myself up to a certain extent and I don't like it because it fucks with my self-respect.
But what is then the 'healthy', earlier way of seeing oneself in relation to others? And how can you sustain this way of thinking while the 'unhealthy' way is now perhaps the norm?
If narcissistic selfie-posting is the norm to follow in social relations, then how can you relate to others in a non-narcissistic way? By simply seeking a better social environment?

>>12932102

First of all:

>and instead opting for narcissistic delusions, protecting your inflated idea of yourself

Cut this out, narcissism is not grandiosity, narcissists can have diminished self-image. Someone with an inferiority complex can be a narcissist, what matters is that they prefer the dream to reality, not the nature of the dream.

Secondly, narcissists use the other as a mirror to reflect back their own self image. Not a mirror to show them who they are, but as something that verifies their chosen identity.

There is nothing wrong with the other being a mirror, I'll say that again, the other reflecting you back to yourself is not a problem. It's what you choose to keep that mirror trained on through the (types of) people you associate with and the kinds of relationships you establish.

Let's ride the example a bit further because who doesn't love a strained metaphor? Imagine you have a photoshopped, perfect picture of yourself. Literally, a perfect picture of yourself. Or for an inferiority project, you go up to the attic and dust off the painting of Dorian Gray. Whatever.

So you take a mirror, you angle it at the photo, and you see your reflection. It gives you the confidence/disgust/desire to masturbate you want and all is good with the world because you are the one in the mirror (and could only be that face) so there's no need to go through any painful processes of change.

If you trained the mirror on yourself, you might see (delete as appropriate) that you should lay off the Fritos. Or that you don't need to wait until they turn out the lights with *every* girl at the bar. (Just kidding, I know you're pining for the guildmate who you imagine has nice-smelling hair.)

So the moment that happens, you've got the id throwing a tantrum, I DON'T WANNA exercise restraint at the till/ I DON'T WANNA spend an evening getting some very average sex in a world with pornhub and fiber internet.

In people who aren't destined for a list or /r9k/ or worse, this gives way to internal lawyering from the Ego. "Well I can only have chips on the day I went swimming, breaststroke is exhausting and I almost swallowed some of the icky chemical water so I need the boost".

Eventually you see that this is bullshit because everyone knows you were holding up the 70 year old in your lane and sooner or later you do too. The prosecution, which in this case is everything psychic that we associate with not being rude to waitstaff or blaming Bush for Trump, wins and your superego finds itself working for a more reasonable client.

In other words, "healthy" is seeing the flaws in the reflection and acting on them. Before that it's being prepared to look at the right reflection, and plenty of people fail at the first step.

>>12931185
Thanks for responding. What are some other essential paleoconservative texts. Got a chart?

>>12933069

So a 'healthy', non-narcissistic way of acting on the reactions of others to yourself would be to accept that their reactions are diverse: meaning you have different facets, some good, some flawed and many you don't even really know about (which may require changing your self-image). And then acting on them (well, for those who have the willpower to do so).
The wrong way is to only look for those reactions which confirm/sustain your 'frozen' self-image (which can be unrealistically good or unrealistically bad) instead of accepting the more complex reality which requires some kind of personal change.
Have I got this right? (btw, I'm assuming you're TLP himself based on the way you write)

>Eventually you see that this is bullshit because everyone knows you were holding up the 70 year old in your lane and sooner or later you do too. The prosecution, which in this case is everything psychic that we associate with not being rude to waitstaff or blaming Bush for Trump, wins and your superego finds itself working for a more reasonable client.
Not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean you eventually stop giving yourself shit because of imperfections?

>>12933600

>(btw, I'm assuming you're TLP himself based on the way you write)

Don't do this. It wouldn't matter even if I were, and I'm LARPing.

>Have I got this right?

Yes.

>... Not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean you eventually stop giving yourself shit because of imperfections?

Yes and no.

I mean eventually in a functioning person you see through your own bullshit and start making changes. You always know, on some level, whether you have excuses or reasons, and in the end you can't hold on to excuses forever if you know that's what they are.

If you don't pick dreaming, you are faced with a choice: start making actual progress, or give up. giving up on one thing is fine if you are making honest progress on others. There are only enough hours in the day, days in a year, years in a life to make a decent stab at a few things and nobody's going to judge, nobody worth listening to.

The only thing is if you say you don't close those sales because you're a good father, you'd best be nurturing your kids. And you'd best be putting more effort into it than would win you a set of steak knives at work.

So in a roundabout way, you were right, you stop giving yourself shit because of imperfections because either a) you fix those imperfections to the point where they are merely human and not the reason JBP sold you his book or b) you do something else in a field where they are not problematic.

>>12933781

Ok, great. Thanks for replying!

>>12920920
>TLP advises to do anything but look at your reflection in the pool. That is: stop thinking about yourself and especially not your appearance, but chase after something real and objective and "lose" yourself in it.
Sounds like Schopenhauer

>>12933439
I don’t think I’ve seen a chart. If you search Paleoconservative and look around you’ll probably find some decent books.

>>12933439
Try Ship of Fools by Tuck, or Sam Fracis Revolution From the Middle, which Inhavent read but I hear is much of the same.

>>12933439
Leviathan and its Enemies is probably the definitive statement of paleoconservative political theory. It's large, unwieldy, and unedited, but it is genius and the dynamics Sam Francis was attuned to eventually produced the populist revolt he foresaw.

Paul Gottfried's "Mass Democracy in the Managerial State" follows along similar lines and discusses the transition from political democracy to therapeutic management

Donald Warren's "The Radical Center" is largely a sociological work and not explicitly paleocon, but the political constituency he identifies is the one that paleocons later point to as the natural enemy of the managerial class and the one that Donald Trump reactivated.

>>12920478
politicized idiots (who) are consistently (politicizing everything are) the worst and least interesting voices

>ellul was a socially conservative socialist
ellul a une affiliation politique? tient bon?

Only bugmen and ex-wives bitch about narcissists

>>12923278
paleocons are hardly socialists dude. they're the ones who pushed muh cultural marxism, while actual socially conservative socialists are almost all informed to a large degree by the frankfurters

>>12934627
narcissism is not the same as arrogance
-Only bugmen and ex-wives bitch about arrogance
-Only ex wives bitch about narcissists

>>12934721
that being said I dislike criticism of narcissists, the substance of the criticism (when by educated people) always feels too close to home

>>12921061
no, what happened was they decided to become "reasonable" and by that they meant go neoliberal . leftist people working in academia couldn't connect their work to nothing that got scope, ambition so they retreated into figuring out what happened, broke down the whole thing in details and found a multitude of worthwhile subjects to study (queer study, post colonialism, developments in feminism, and so on) , eventually sort of losing sight of why they bother to study this to begin with, to create a true , deeper solidarity towards emancipation of market economy ... the sjw young pups dont deserve anger, they are doing their baby teef figuring out their newly learned theory and most will become careerists continuing the status quo... socialism is a meme these days tho so maybe some of them will look it up...

>>12921473
>perhaps it's more about having as close to an objective view of yourself that you can have. You have to know yourself, without getting caught in the trap of the pond. You have to BE Nemisis standing behind yourself, challenging yourself, and not the you who takes the bait and stares into the pond. Nemesis and Narcissus are thus both sides of the same coin
This was my take also. Good post

>>12921024
>Do you most people in the 1920s knew how cars worked
Every single man in my great-grandfathers town in rural arkansas could serve as a functional mechanic. It was dead simple and the variety of engine/body types was minimal. My grandpa indicated this through old stories and knowing himself how to work on a large variety of machines up to the year '64 with no formal training. You're so obviously misinformed it's frightening.

>>12920478
Socially conservative socialism is literally the biggest potential political alignment in America, as the polls tell us. It's kept under by using identity politics and social causes to undermine economic change, and then neglecting those very social issues in the end.
>>12923246
They're pussies. Gee whiz aren't the democrats bad? Oh no, don't call me racist, endless brown people is a great

>>12920881
Unoriginality doesnt matter. If the truth is forgotten, then you dont need to reinvent it, you just need to uncover it and show it once again.

The ideas of Jacques Ellul have entered mainstream thought because of Ted. Even though pretty much no one has ever read Ellul, they're nonetheless aware of them because Ted incorporated them into his manifesto.

>>12920715
agree. also true of Quora

>>12934839
>i dislike criticism of narcissists because it feels too close to home

well.. it might be time to draw conclusions from that statement, and set out a self-improvement plan

>>12934839
>I dislike criticism of narcissists
>always feels too close to home
Maybe this should be telling you something.

>>12933781
>The only thing is if you say you don't close those sales because you're a good father, you'd best be nurturing your kids. And you'd best be putting more effort into it than would win you a set of steak knives at work.
This deserves a shout out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI

>>12920478
>Third positionism lowkey solves a lot of problems
Gee, it's kind of like the current system ended it as soon as possible in Europe when it started sorting out the piggies.

>>12927903
What's edgy about him exactly?

>>12935282
Do you envision any way that conservative socialism could be reached to the masses? Most people are sheep, and perhaps pure “socialism” is not the word we are looking for (more economic nationalism), but Tucker Carlson is the only mainstream figure I see preaching this, although you get guys like Andrew Yang who come a little bit close (with his talk of people over economy and general anti-wokeness)

>>12936730
Even as a right-wing person, he's just such an unlikable prick. He seems to pick his battles and his hills purely for outrage porn, and he does everything with a kind of smarmy attitude that I can't stand him.

>>12936649
Translation?

>>12934839
i think everyone can identify with criticism of narcissists to some extent, as everyone is self-interested

to blur the line between normal / healthy self-interest and narcissism is to risk becoming echoistic

>>12931379
lmao this

>>12921121

Fucking bullshit. Life didn't change because the toys we play with got more complex. A major takeaway from the Socratic dialogues is the vast majority of people float through life unthinking, full of ignorance and contradictory beliefs. And they get angry when this is pointed out to them.

It has always been this way.
It will always be this way.

>>12921024
>Do you most people in the 1920s knew how cars worked?

Even boomers had a good idea how cars worked, retard. It's only this generation people can't fix their own cars anymore due to 1) increasing complexity & 2) decreasing knowledge.

>>12937069
Getting increasingly annoyed at this take.
>The world always stays the same, it doesn't matter just shut up.

>>12937069
Once again: technology changes the modes of production (for example Taylorism) which changes the way society is organized (for example huge urban areas instead of small towns) which changes the way people interact with one another (for example gesellschaft instead of gemeinschaft) which in turn changes the very way in which we view ourselves (changed idea of self).

Add to this the fact that the material culture surrounding us has become increasingly un-understandable (people not even having a vague idea of how their food is produced and processed), you get a way of life and perception of life which is different than before.

The root cause probably being the industrial revolution and the technological change on which is was based and still continues to accelerate.

Does anyone know about any other authors who write about how these interactions between ego ideal, superego and the dense network of unwritten social rules function?
Lasch explains it partly, Zizek refers to it often (but he always jumps from one topic to another without giving many references), one anon recommended Byung-Sul Han. Are there any others?
I'm really interested in how this functions.

Bump

>>12921061
lol, everyone shitting on the left now would have absolutely hated Hippies and Hippie culture.

>>12920874
t. Extinct genetic line in 3 degenerated generations and/or mind copy trapped in illuminati artifical hell for eternity.

>>12920693
TLPs stuff is great but I've become increasingly dissatisfied with his solutions and ways of working through emotions. I'm glad he stopped writing when he did as his methods would sound like utterly inept boomer tier shit in the current climate.

>>12938294
brave of you to assume any of us fuck

Bump. This is an interesting thread.

>>12921269
"Neo-liberalism" doesn't exist the same way crony capitalism doesnt exist
it's just plain capitalism

Are there any leftist conservatives (or culturally conservative leftists) in Europe?
As for as I know all conservative parties have neoliberal economic ideas, while more centrist/christian/catholic parties sometimes have a left wing (made up of christian union members) but mostly just follow neoliberalism.
Far right parties seem way closer in ideology, but instead of being plain conservative and respectable, they're mostly bigoted, extremist and aren't respectable in any way.

>>12939305
>Far right parties seem way closer in ideology, but instead of being plain conservative and respectable, they're mostly bigoted, extremist and aren't respectable in any way.
The sentiment in eastern europe is increasingly anti-globalist, insofar to route the supply chains towards russia instead of west.

>>12939440
>The sentiment in eastern europe is increasingly anti-globalist, insofar to route the supply chains towards russia instead of west.
eastern europe hates both russia and western europe
"anti-globalist" is meaningless here, what they don't want is people who don't pass the paper bag test - if globalism stops that then they'll go with it, if it doesn't then they'll go with something else that does

>>12939440
I know, and the far right parties in power show the difference between the far right and respectable conservatism.
Curtailing freedom of the press, undermining the separation of government and the justice system, outright anti-semitism and promoting dumb, agressive forms of nationalism is what sets them apart I think.

>>12919959
>>12920693
https://old.reddit.com/r/thelastpsychiatrist/comments/93jztv/the_rise_and_fall_of_the_american_suburb_tracking/

https://old.reddit.com/r/thelastpsychiatrist/comments/8uf7vm/women_and_the_common_life_by_christopher_lasch_on/

some interesting posts about lasch on the tlp subreddit

I agree with the vast majority of what Lasch says, but I’m not sure a proper rejection of neoliberalism can be described as “conservatism” in the truest sense. While I think traditions are important, I also believe they should be open to critique and change.

The funniest thing about various left wing critiques of tradition (socialist critiques, feminist critiques, colonial critiques etc.) is that there’s nothing wrong with them in principle, but they’ve been appropriated in such a way that serves capitalism, when these perspectives should theoretically be capitalism’s biggest enemies.

I think a kind of Laschian style socialism that actually incorporates these perspectives without the encouragement of “narcissism” Lasch identifies could be a unifying force for change. I’d go so far as to call it a necessity, since technology and universal education has rendered the existence of a world without these ideas existing all but impossible.

This is a post on a blog I was recommend to from here on /lit/ for a TLP-esque site that ends up discussing some topics similar to/related to the above-posted Narcissus piece, though it takes a while to get there and does it without referencing Narcissus in general.

https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/140529495929/how-to-be-attractive

>>12939922
>The funniest thing about various left wing critiques of tradition (socialist critiques, feminist critiques, colonial critiques etc.) is that there’s nothing wrong with them in principle, but they’ve been appropriated in such a way that serves capitalism, when these perspectives should theoretically be capitalism’s biggest enemies.

>Academia picks up these specific fights (feminism, post-colonialism, etc.)
>Realizes that they can more or less only exist in an academic situation
>Colleges focus on this kind of work because it brings money in from people who may not have even gone to college in the first place

>>12940808
>>they can more or less only exist in an academic situation
Not really. All of these movements had their beginnings outside of academia and can be applied to very real politic and social phenomena today. The problem is, as you mentioned, the way in which these movements became fashionable among those in ivory towers. These movements now have to have a marketable face, appearing just rebellious enough to attract anti-authoritarians, but not so rebellious as to actually bring about meaningful social change. It goes without saying that these movements used to have teeth, but now they each have a mainstream variant which only uses the movement for have hearted virtue signalling and to direct profits to a particular organisation. The fact that a major manufacturer can virtue signal about gender equality while simultaneously not doing shit to protect men or women in the third world factories they outsource production to is practically the norm today. It's so bourgeois-centric, and yet some people on the left defend it by saying that a half-measure is better than no measure. Little do they realise that it's this association with half-heartedness that's hurting the image of their movement and subsequently provoking far right backlash.

>>12920920
>stop thinking about yourself and especially not your appearance, but chase after something real and objective and "lose" yourself in it.

I doubt this is even possible. It seems prone to engendering more pathology.

>>12940069
This is a really neat blog. I remember there were people who thought that this was actually TLP.

>>12940069
>https://hotelconcierge.tumblr.com/post/140529495929/how-to-be-attractive

I like the guy's analysis of why certain people aren't attractive, it seems to make sense.
But his advice that in the end, we should try to communicate/embody some sort of prototype (jock, hipster, artsy person, bookish person, etc.) even though it probably works in practice, ignores the major underlying problem: these prototypes are superficial and that's why many people can't believe in them anymore.
This is where changes in social interaction and society in general cause problems on the individual level.

Lasch says on p41:
>"The struggle to maintain psychic equilibrium in a society that demands submission to the rules of social intercourse but refuses to ground those rules in a code moral conduct encourages a form of self-absorption that has little in common with the primary narcissism of the imperial self."

These "prototypes" aren't in anyway justified anymore in any broader ethics or normative system.
They do work in practice: act like X and you will attract girl of type Z, but what kind of social relations are these if you can't believe in some kind of validity of these roles (that they have some deeper justification) but just have to assume them as some kind of actor's role?

How can you consciously assume a role just because it works empirically and not be depressed all the time because you know very well how fleeting and non-substantial the role is? Don't people who assume these roles succesfully secretly believe in their inherent value or something?

It's like what Baudrillard says (supposedly, I honestly haven't read him yet): signifiers (in this case the social role) don't refer to anything substantial anymore, just to their place vis-à-vis other signifiers.

>>12934602
Oui tête de con, il en avait une, une de gauche.

>>12943409
If we relinquish some kind of transcendental ground to which we can anchor our identities in then is a identity chosen and cultivated with a specific purpose really worse than one formed out of a mishmash of half-acknowledged reflexes internalised through the consumption and regurgitation of mass media? If we cede to science, empiricism, the totality of our conception of self and accept its vision of self as an illusory aggregate of neurons firing off that can barely reproduce an account of the last five minutes with any accuracy then why should choosing a role be any more depressing than choosing a tool?

More so if you look at the kind of world that was able to produce people with a deeply grounded sense of identity you have to ask yourself if you really think that kind of world is worth going back to? The acolytes of Ted.K, Tolkien loving Tradcaths, and BAP-types seem to think so, but few else do.

The two questions at the core of this is 1. Is communication even possible? and 2. Is this enough? The answer for most people seems to be 'who cares' and 'yes'.

>>12939305
Nothing is wrong with free markets, when they operate under common trust, accountability, obligation, and values, at scales appropriate to the locality (Adam Smith's "invisible hand"). This is a political challenge, because none of that can be democratically imposed, lest you risk the obliteration of democracy, and those sacred public spaces in which people can set aside their differences to compromise, pass laws, and coordinate resources at a national level for those problems which need it. This is why Christian Democrat parties (in Catholic Europe) and Agrarian Centre parties (in Scandinavia) seem like powerless instruments of the status quo. It is also why some "postmodernity" and "postpolitical" movements advocate the peaceful, voluntary establishment of communes which uphold these values, like the Blue Socialists and the Neocalvinists.

>>12943587

I don't believe you can really assume the subjective position you lay out in your first paragraph.
This is what Zizek often points to: we're supposedly all cynical hedonist egoïsts, life is meaningless, we only care about ourselves and believe in nothing.
But this is just what we consciously tell ourselves. The people who can function in these superficial roles are exactly people who DO believe in something more without even realizing it.

For example, I've known 'punks' who claim they're totally cynical, egoïst, nihilist, whatever and they were among the happiest, best functioning people I knew. Why? Because rather than being cynical as the claimed they were (opting out of a 'normal life'/career, not committing to relationships, taking drugs, etc.) they really believed in the worth of their extremely superficial identity (which consisted of nothing more than wearing certain clothes and listening to certain music). They believed that somehow, in some way, what they did meant something real, that is was 'cool' or 'good' or 'right'. That they really embodied something more than the hollow shell of a role.

It's the inability to believe even in this cynical way (which is now the dominant way, at least according to Zizek), which I think makes it difficult. I don't believe we can really be cynical, just superficially.

Also, I don't think going back is an option nor that it is desirable.

They may say 'who cares' and 'yes', but they don't know what they really believe.
Everyone who owns a BMW can say: 'it's just a stupid status symbol, a hunk of metal which merely displays how important I am in the social hierarchy'.
But still they work like crazy and then spend their hard-earned cash on stupid BMW's. This is not cynical calculation, this is belief.

>>12943644
Why would the democratic imposition of these values threaten democracy?
Don't we already expect companies to be accountable, to adhere to certain values (even while we all know they often don't in practice)?
Isn't it merely a question of asking for more consistency? (We all think tax evasion is wrong, yet we still tolerate multinationals doing it by using tax havens. Some kind of supranational action would merely impose the rules in practice which are already there in theory)
Interesting, I've never heard of Blue socialism before.

>>12943667
What is the mechanism that prevents the cynical adoption of an identity, however transitory? Actors do it all the time. Is theatre impossible? And I think it would be good to define what we mean by cynical, because you make it sound an awful lot like self-awareness or a consciously willed action thought of ahead of time, and to deny the possibility of this is even more radically reductionist than the hypothetical people we are discussing here.

The only mechanism I can think if is cognitive limitations, being unable to keep everything in the front of your mind. When you concentrate intensely on a single thought or action do you still love your loved ones or do you need to actively think about your love for them to love them at all?

I would agree with you that these people believe in things because the realization of the total contingency of belief and identity upon ephemeral phenomenon does not mean the cessation of these things within the subject. It does, however, change how they are valued for many people.

Anything that does not anchor itself on some transcendental ground ultimately opens up identity to be viewed as a mere problem of engineering in need of finer tools. Belief too, as it runs on the same hardware as identity when conceived of without transcendental grounds.

>>12943810
>>12943667
Robbers cave experiment. Humans seem to have innate need to belong, to have in and out group, separated by identity, substance of which doesn't really matter. Teen subcultures spawn from this need, because global conformity pushes you to not belong anywhere.

Punk subculture is just hysterical contrarianism to the mainstream. This is why Sid Vicious wore swastika t-shirt in the 70s, way ahead of actual neo-nazis. It was the exact opposite of mainstream expectation.

Constructed identities are common in teenagers who embrace the identity symbol for the symbol's sake. You can see it on /pol/, or tumblr. It's a phase. Eventually they need to find an actual identity for more than mere belonging - posing gets solidified into an actual belief. Most people simply succumb to the crushing pressure of mainstream - stop wearing hot topic clothes, attend college and get a job, like the good cogs they are.

Only fraction becomes what they initially pretended to be, now truly internalizing it. Be it punks, or genderfluid "finding yourself" on tumblr.

>>12943963

I agree with this diagnosis completely, only the substance does in fact matter because the people in question believe it exists somewhere (even if doesn't). They're edgy contrarianists, they may even explicitly acknowledge it, but my point is they must secretly believe it has a substance of some sort.
I have seen many of these people in their mid 20s, 30s and older who haven't grown up. They stick to this identity because they believe there is some substance to it somewhere.
This is also why so many of them pretty soon feel the need to look for a radical political ideology which gives them a moral justification for the edgy ways in which they act (I even respect those who really mean it and try to stick to their principles), but then they're no longer really cynical. They need some justification, some substance to their identity, even if they don't acknowledge it.

>>12943810
I mean some fundamental identity, not the theatre. Actors, beneath their consciously assumed mask of their character, have a personal identity which they really assume.

What I meant is that the way you define yourself here:
>accept its vision of self as an illusory aggregate of neurons firing off that can barely reproduce an account of the last five minutes with any accuracy
is impossible to really, subjectively believe as an individual.
I'm saying that you can say this consciously, but it's impossible to really subjectively believe you're nothing more than a bunch of neurons flying from here to there. Fantasy and belief function constantly in your unconscious.

>I would agree with you that these people believe in things because the realization of the total contingency of belief and identity upon ephemeral phenomenon does not mean the cessation of these things within the subject
Yeah, actually I didn't really mean more than this. Sorry, if I'm not expressing myself clearly.
I'd add to this that that even if social identities can by accepted as totally contingent and non-substantial, there has to be some kind of 'real', other, underlying identity which the person assumes, of which he does really believe there to be a substance of some kind.

wOW A GOOD thread

>>12921233
Woah, so insightful! I didn't know geniuses were here. WOW! A real LIVE GENIUS!

Does anyone else read Samzdat? It feels like the next link in the chain after TLP. He even has a three post review of Lasch. https://samzdat.com/2017/07/17/a-taylorism-for-all-seasons/

Apparently the real issue at the root of it all is nihilism?

>>12945119
Samzdat, and the earlier mentioned Hotel Concierge, have been posted on /lit/ a few times as the post-TLP torch bearers. Unfortuntately, the latter hasn't updated in almost a year, and the former doesn't touch social issues nearly as much, or with the same kind of 'voice'.

>Apparently the real issue at the root of it all is nihilism?
That nihilism is an absolute problem is definitely true, but I'm just not sure if it's the absolute root of the issue, or just the most lethal symptom.

>>12943409
>But his advice that in the end, we should try to communicate/embody some sort of prototype (jock, hipster, artsy person, bookish person, etc.) even though it probably works in practice, ignores the major underlying problem: these prototypes are superficial and that's why many people can't believe in them anymore.

Maybe I just read it differently, but from what I understood, it was more about using those prototypical, archetypal roles as something of a crutch - use them as a goal, use them to build some confidence, and eventually you'll get a synthesis of who "you" are and who you want to be (mostly through the movement from the overthinking, anxiety-ridden narcissism of the "System 2" thinking to the quicker, more 'natural' "System 1" thinking). It's that movement, that change, to become something rather than staying and looking into the pond, that TLP was discussing in the Narcissus piece.

>>12943667
>>12943963
I work with many people who apply the same depth of understanding teenage mall goths, to their jobs, partners, and friends.

It's shocking. It's almost as though the secret to happiness is believing your own bullshit, thus transubstantiating meaning into your life.

>>12945250
Actually, to add to that
>using those prototypical, archetypal roles as something of a crutch - use them as a goal, use them to build some confidence, and eventually you'll get a synthesis of who "you" are and who you want to be (mostly through the movement from the overthinking, anxiety-ridden narcissism of the "System 2" thinking to the quicker, more 'natural' "System 1" thinking). It's that movement, that change, to become something rather than staying and looking into the pond
part, TLP goes over something very similar in a post referenced in this >>12945119 Samzdat post:

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/05/thank_god_the_heart_attack_gri.html
>(On learning languages) Once you have the accent down, pick a foreign language actor or actress you admire, and learn the language as if you were them. Talk like them. This trick works because you are thinking like someone else, acting like someone else, yet simultaneously distancing yourself from this change-- I'm doing this, but it's not me, I'm just pretending. The self-consciousness is removed because it's not "you" who is doing it. Yet it is; and after a time, you'll become it-- and the positive benefit for society is you'll hate the guy you used to be. C'est la vie.

>>12943767
I should say mass democracy. It can only vulgarly imitate the things it replaces. Consider welfare. People always talk about how it is inhumane, how welfare recipients never get the care and attention they deserve - and they're right, but that's because hungover bureaucrats in the capital can never make the correct nuanced decisions for millions of people millions of miles away, not because the welfare state is underfunded. Family is the best form of welfare, because in addition to financial support, you get emotional support, the transmission of knowledge and self-discipline, someone who actually knows you etc. The next best thing is for someone in your local community, some charity or person, who knows you and your surroundings, what opportunities there are (or lack thereof). A welfare state is still necessary as the last fallback, but it cannot be allowed to nationalise our conscience. The nation state must come after our shared heritage and values, our unique web of relations and connections, which are a little bit different here than they are over the here. The state is good at massive coordination of resources by a centralised authority, but to function it makes necessarily dehumanising generalisations and assumptions about everyone.

Bump

>>12945250
>>12945425
Yeah, after rereading Lasch's quote in the Samzdat post I think you're right. Assuming a role but maintaining a certain distance towards it isn't problematic, but helpful and this is probably what the article meant to say.
Nevertheless, the increasing speed with which these social roles (and their outward appearances) change is problematic. We have to assume a role and keep a distance from it, reminding ourselves that the outward appearance is not the real us (no problem with this, it lubricates the social machine), but at the same time you have two conflicting things about it:
a) the increasing speed with which these roles (actually, more appearances than roles if we're still talking about hipsters, bookish/nerdy personas, etc.) change (how to dress, what to read, where to go out, etc.) makes them more superficial than ever. It should be really obvious to everyone that they're mostly just appearances, devoid of substance.
b)Despite a) or maybe exactly because of it, isn't there an increasing demand for authenticity? I'm not totally sure of this, but didn't social roles used to have more justification/validity to them (even if people kept a certain disctance towards them)?

>>12945629
This is true, but these unique webs are continuously disrupted by changes in the economy. This is one of the main concerns of Trump-voters. Could they still adequately fullfil their function?
Maybe the welfare state is an unavoidable but flawed replacement because of the changes brought about by the industrial revolution and also the necessity of at least a bit of wealth redistribution (just to keep inequality from getting too out of hand).

>>12920715
You’re reddit.

>>12923246
kys yourself

>>12923246
Nah, listen to Girls Chat.

>>12947719
>Maybe the welfare state is an unavoidable but flawed replacement because of the changes brought about by the industrial revolution and also the necessity of at least a bit of wealth redistribution (just to keep inequality from getting too out of hand).

Yeah, I think it's unavoidable if you want the living standards brought about as a consequence of the industrial revolution and modern global capitalism. This implies that economic contraction---degrowth---is the correct solution. But no-one will vote to lower their living standards though, so I'm pessimistic about anything ever happening.

>>12920478
Unfortunately their ideology is a contraddiction of terms.

>>12919959
his daughter praised my work once

>>12948258
You also have to take into account that nations are still in an unending competition for power.
The taxes that fund the defense department (and the government jobs) come frome economic growth which comes from consumption.
Degrowth would mean a decrease in spending, which would mean ceding power to other countries like China which could eventually mean they can impose stuff on your society you don't want (just like Western countries impose unequal trade agreements on weaker third world countries).
We're on Mr. Bones' wild ride now, best to just learn how to cope with it.

>>12920851
>>12921727

What almost every writer of the social-critic stamp fails to adequately emphasize about technology, if they notice it at all, is that the very thing that makes it valuable and enticing to everyone--power to control the environment to the advantage of creature-comforts and high culture--is the same thing that makes it double as a weapon easily abused by those who are hungry for power over other persons, or simply destructive to others by impulse, as psychopaths are: That is, its extreme malleability, its obedience to the will's most arbitrary movements, and power to amplify them. In the paleolithic past, everyone was more or less equal in poverty, and in powerless subjection to natural phenomena--make what laundry list you will, of diseases, disasters, dangerous fauna, fatal weather, and endless modes & degrees of starvation. As recently as the 90s, and possibly still, there were people in rain-forests who lived without any knowledge of what has developed over the last 10,000 years, but in view of the occasional jet contrail far overhead, while at roughly the same time, there are individuals who own several jets, which they use mostly as pleasure craft, yet also depend for their existence as a person who does all that, on a comparably expensive private security force. (Zuckerberg, for instance, spends about a million per month on it.) Surreal, and ultimately nightmarish, inequality is built into technology from the outset, and the idea that social reform can do more than very slightly ameliorate this effect, is a fantasy born of ignorance of natural history.

>>12933439
The late Sam T Francis, lots of his articles on Unz and Vdare.
Paul Gottfried as well

>>12919959
Literally the greatest piece of cultural criticism ever written

>>12948266
is it though? lots of labour movements were socially conservative in nature

>>12947719
>b)Despite a) or maybe exactly because of it, isn't there an increasing demand for authenticity? I'm not totally sure of this, but didn't social roles used to have more justification/validity to them (even if people kept a certain disctance towards them)?

From Samzdat https://samzdat.com/2017/07/17/a-taylorism-for-all-seasons/
> is “authenticity.” This is against earler mores, which we know all about: aristocratic customs were the outward signifier of domination, petit-bourgeois manners reified capitalism, and the office hierarchy mirrored patriarchy...This tenuous connection between “authenticity” and the politics of (perhaps) “anti-dominance” or “leftism” or simply “democracy” is a modern one. It’s what Lasch’s book is mostly about. For Lasch, this is not merely sloppy scholarship: this is the founding myth of modernity. This is Athena blasting out of Zeus’s weathered brow, fully-formed and wise.

The struggle for "authenticity" in a modern sense, and in relation to those roles we were discussing, seems more about labels outside of the roles - the bits of a branch holding up the scarecrow beneath the clothing. There may be an increase in a desire for authenticity, but it's set squarely oppositional to those roles that we also seem to need. We buy cultural and identity signifiers to show off who we are beneath the masks, but these are all generic and hardly branded towards any real identity; rather, they represent the things we can't change, and thus take those immutable aspects as an identity ("I"m gay, even if I dress like a punk!", "I'm black, though I try hard to appear like an ivy league prep", etc.), which they aren't. They're just traits.

Consider Samzdat's masquerade metaphor from the same post:
>It’s an acting contest at first, and everyone is assigned a mask. The guest is to playact the identity of the mask
>Final transformation [of the contesst]: hide the contest. It still takes place (somewhere), but is no longer the explicit public aim...
>... It signifies how you think of yourself, how you think of others, etc. There’s technically something important about playing the role behind it, but with a hidden contest all social prestige comes from the mask itself. Accordingly, the mask becomes a token of everything you are, even if everyone knows it’s just a mask.

We're all wearing masks, or adopting roles (to use the HC post's phrases), but things have become increasingly muddied, less clear. The masks are there, but we're also now more aware of their meta-meaning and representational power. So we paradoxically "play the game" while simultaneously attempting to display some kind of "authenticity" or importance outside of it - all while still tied up in the fact that the masks are still essentially "us", or made of us. It's all confusing and painful and utterly unsatisfying.

>>12933439
Here's the chart bro

>>12950966
Good chart, thanks anon

>>12919959
Hostile Elites is the perfect description of our current situation.

>>12950966
Almost all of these are available on a certain mega which named after a certain other board, which claims to be always right, and which mega is permanently linked at a certain other site named for the totality of all numbers.

>>12950966
No GK Chesterton?

>>12951875
Where does one start with GKC?

>>12950954
It certainly is all very confusing and the best way of handling it isn't obvious.
What I meant by
>but didn't social roles used to have more justification/validity to them
was: weren't social roles, even as we kept a distance towards them, seen as somehow justified in themselves.
Like as if the social order was ordained by god and therefore it was right and in a more objective sense good to act out a role. You do your duty by playing a good cop/father/baker/student (even if the 'you' beneath the role kept a distance from the role). The roles had some kind of moral connotation: the social order and its rules were based on what was morally right and every function had it's part in the whole.

This in contrast to todays social roles which are often pure appearance, like say the ones based largely on fashion trends (I'm a bookish person because I wear glasses, turtlenecks and ostentatiously read books at Starbucks), but lack this underlying moral connotation (it's just to look like X for whoever is looking, not for any underlying value). This 'hollowness' of the roles is reinforced by the speed at which they appear and dissappear.
That's kinda what I understood by this quote by Lasch on p 41:

>The struggle to maintain psychic equilibrium in a society that demands submission to the rules of social intercourse but refuses to ground these rules in a code moral conduct encourages a form of self-absorption...

The first and probably also the second of Samzdats contest were still seen as something moral, the playing out of the roles was seen as having some purpose or as being good.