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Well my point was not that NRx was unique in crafting a self-serving narrative, just that they emphasize certain methods to do so rather than cherry-picking evidence from literally anywhere. But yes, it doesn't explain why certain people are attracted to that narrative when there are plenty of people who are not attracted to it despite working in the fields that NRx idealizes as the true font of knowledge. Getting more specific than "people of a certain demographic are insecure about their place in the modern world and want to return to a system that they believe was better for them" is difficult, though. Every individual and sub-group in this "movement" emphasizes different factors.
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Jul 20, 2015 20:51
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Crain posted:Things are getting better now, but it's not great for an average working dude. Especially in the tech industry (where a lot of this seems centered). You what? Tech is like 1000 times better a place to be than most professions these days.
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Jul 20, 2015 21:00
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Narciss posted:That has happened in all cultures since the beginning of time. Not even close e: If anything "The Inevitable March of Progress" has historically been a much more common narrative in Western society e2: There's also a very good reason why the 1950s is often citied as the decade when everything was better Gum fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 09:01
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I would very much like to know what the Founding Fathers would say if they could see these children being debauched to further the cause of Clearasil. However, I always suspected that democracy would come to this . . . A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.
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Jul 21, 2015 14:47
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Weldon Pemberton posted:I agree, and people staying in little online echo chambers that only circulate stories that confirm their worldview is obviously something we see all over the political spectrum. I was specifically talking about the focus on numbers and facts rather than the reason behind the facts, though, which I do believe is a STEM or at least a positivist thing. Women and minorities fare poorly when such an approach is taken, so even when you are engaging the data in good faith, if that data is purely descriptive it can lead towards a right-wing interpretation. You could equally argue that trying to explain away the statistics with qualitative data and over-analysis is more common on the left. In any case, there is at least a correlation between positivism in sociology and more traditionalist perspectives (and vice versa), even if I have the causation wrong. The reactionaries themselves know this, and that's why many of them propose that only people with STEM backgrounds should be in government. The focus on numbers and facts isn't a STEM thing at all - it's common among modern racists. Since racism is no longer socially acceptable, a statement of racist opinion like "-insert minority here- are all a bunch of thieves and murderers" gets demonized and dismissed by anyone who's listening, but if the statement is accompanied by hard data such as crime rates, then it sounds more like fact than opinion and is a lot harder for people to dismiss out of hand if they don't realize the factors that affect and distort the reliability of data. Lying with statistics is super popular among the dishonest, because it takes actual effort or knowledge to debunk, whereas regular lying is mostly just a statement of opinion that can be easily countered by another opinion. And on the subject of deceptive statistics, attributing a right-wing skew to engineers because of the way they think or something like that seems like a dangerous jaunt into the realm of "correlation != causation", and the writeup implies some flaws in the sample population as well. Engineers tend to be male members of the dominant local ethnic group who make well over the local median income, the engineering curriculum is rigorous and designed to force out all but the most dedicated students, and engineering is a prestigious enough occupation that their titles are specially regulated in many countries. Those kinds of conditions practically breed conservatism. There's plenty of right-wing doctors in the US, too, likely due to the similar conditions the medical industry encourages. As for the sample population issues, the examples suggest they're counting software "engineers" in their sample, which is absurd.
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Jul 21, 2015 15:43
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Main Paineframe posted:The focus on numbers and facts isn't a STEM thing at all - it's common among modern racists. Since racism is no longer socially acceptable, a statement of racist opinion like "-insert minority here- are all a bunch of thieves and murderers" gets demonized and dismissed by anyone who's listening, but if the statement is accompanied by hard data such as crime rates, then it sounds more like fact than opinion and is a lot harder for people to dismiss out of hand if they don't realize the factors that affect and distort the reliability of data. Lying with statistics is super popular among the dishonest, because it takes actual effort or knowledge to debunk, whereas regular lying is mostly just a statement of opinion that can be easily countered by another opinion. I agree. At least the analysis shown so far seems somewhat dubious. Engineering is a broad field and much of it doesn't lend itself to overly abstract black and white thinking. It's hard for me to envision and industrial systems engineer or naval architect being necesarily more prone to extremism than a doctor or novelist. Engineering is the intersection between theory and real life and people who are primarily interested in the abstract are often better suited to science, math, computer science or other niche areas of research. That said (personal bias coming), programming is arguably the most controlled and abstract form of engineering. In essence the computer is a virtual world where the programmer has the freedom to do whatever they want, and what they do is highly controlled and repeatable. But again the entire line of thinking is dubious until other variables such as status/pay etc are controlled for. Though in terms of a sense of entiteent one narrative I could start to see is that technical talent tends to be both visible and rewarded at very early age in a way that other talents may not be. asdf32 fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 17:28
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Gum posted:There's also a very good reason why the 1950s is often citied as the decade when everything was better Ok, what's the reason? Forgive if I'm coming off as a smartass as that's not my intent. I'm curious how.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:32
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Race Realists posted:Ok, what's the reason? Forgive if I'm coming off as a smartass as that's not my intent. I'm curious how. Everyone knew their place. Some people's place was to attend institutions of higher learning; others' place was to serve as a credit to their race by shining shoes or operating elevators.
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Jul 21, 2015 22:40
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Fetishization of the 50s always made me laugh because they dont seem to get there is a reason the 60s happened next.
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Jul 22, 2015 00:43
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Fetishization of the 50s always made me laugh because they dont seem to get there is a reason the 60s happened next. The 1950s, when men were men, women were subservient, gays lived lives of closeted terror, black people knew not to let the sun set on them in this here town, boy, and everyone lived in mortal fear of sudden nuclear annihilation. Oh, take me back to that wondrous age!
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Jul 22, 2015 00:48
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SedanChair posted:Everyone knew their place. Some people's place was to attend institutions of higher learning; others' place was to serve as a credit to their race by shining shoes or operating elevators.
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Jul 22, 2015 01:34
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Watermelon City posted:That was nothing new to the 50s. It was the last time it was in full swing. The twilight years of unquestioned white male rule. quote:The decade is remembered fondly by some because of the economic prosperity along with higher rates of civic engagement. For white people. So, it's fondly remembered by white people. quote:People now are far more isolated and less economically secure. Isolated in some ways, and more connected in others. No argument about the economic security, although you could say that the coddled middle class has since been driven towards the insecurity that others experienced at that time, and continue to experience.
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Jul 22, 2015 01:43
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I'd say in the US there's a very different attitude towards the 50's so it couldn't really be said to be just because it was the period immediately preceding the sexual revolution, the beginning of 2nd wave feminism, etc. The US enjoyed a decade of almost unparalleled economic success, I'm think Rome post First or Second Punic war when the Republic was at it's height and the money/grain was rolling in. Not even hardcore anti-feminists in the UK pine for the 50's because Britain was a smoking ruin that was still enjoying rationing on certain foods for the early part of the decade and they slowly saw the remains of Empire slip away. People are nostalgic for the 50's because the USA really was the global economic powerhouse, people enjoyed prosperity and they assume part of that must have been to do with people leading virtuous lives, it's really an extension of the Just World fallacy combined with massive nostalgia and being part of a class that didn't have to deal with the negative aspects of that period.
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Jul 22, 2015 04:19
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People are saying they have specialized intelligence, but I don't even think that is really true. For instance, in their programming (from my judgments based on accomplishments and relative income), they are typically very, very mid-range programmers that are okay at writing some code to a degree, but are not inventive enough or BROAD thinking enough to really demand high-six figures in coding (mediocre programmers can easily get low six figures and can sleepwalk into high five in this economy, although some automation is wiping that out). When faced with a coding problem, that kind of person beats their head against the wall trying the same thing over and over instead of just sleeping on it and coming up up with out of the box or completely different methods of solving problems (and it's this ability, and the quickness in which someone can do so, that typically creates the kind of experience that begins demanding a really high salary, as opposed to just being a replace-able cog). I'd say many fall into the "smarter than they think" with the typical blind spots that real intelligence doesn't have or quickly erases, and a stubborn inability to reassess a closely held viewpoint that mostly composes the type of person that is drawn to this kind of grouping. Basically, at the high end of mediocrity to believe they are above that, but not smart enough to not be dumb enough to realize why their thinking is wrong (many times objectively) about what they believe. And also a lot of trolls and assholes mixed in as well. Darko fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jul 22, 2015 |
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Jul 22, 2015 04:34
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I'd say that those are two very different sorts of problem solving (at least according to Daniel Kahneman) the latter of which, applying basic heuristics and tried and tested solutions to, is generally what you need and can produce very quick work and results. As you said this kind of approach utterly fails when you're confronted with a novel problem that requires a different solution and I think there's a tendency in engineering (material and software type) to heavily priorities the former while ignoring the latter. It's arguable that it's this kind of training that encourages a very black/white view of the world among engineers. Generally engineering training does involve quite a bit of theory, etc. but, at least from knowing people who studied it, most of them time is dedicated to learning formulas and how to apply them again and again to a variety of problems. Effectively undergraduate level engineer training (at least for material engineers, I'd imagine a software engineering degree would be similar versus a computer science course) is aimed at making you very, very capable at the fast, more intuitive form of problem solving. People who excel at that will be generally able to solve engineering problems correctly and able to work relatively quickly. It's an important skill, I had one acquaintance doing a PhD in engineering from a physics background who dropped out after 2 years because he hadn't really learned how to do this and solving every novel problem from first principles was just far, far too slow. I don't think there's a lot of training or rewards for the latter approach though, creative thinking is difficult to test for and to assess. Engineering rewards people who get good at using engineering principles to solve problems, hence all jokes about engineering solutions to problems that have a much simpler human centred solution. As has been said, this is just spitballing, the idea that engineers or others have training that predisposes them to being right wing is pretty specious but I do think they have a particularly rigorous training that focuses them on applying certain principles to solving problems and effectively punishes those who think 'outside the box' in the sense that they will either not be able to work as efficiently in most tasks or will be giving answers that are not expected and not desired. Obviously people who can recognise when learned intuitive responses won't work and are able to be more creative are the really great engineers but it's a profession where you will only occassionally see that distinction made so it's not surprising that people who are really good at trained problem solving would think of themselves as great engineers.
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Jul 22, 2015 04:53
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Race Realists posted:Ok, what's the reason? Forgive if I'm coming off as a smartass as that's not my intent. I'm curious how. Basically what other people said, it's seen as the decade before hippies, feminists and the civil rights movement ruined everything. It's not just "That past is better" it's specifically "It was better when 'we' were winning".
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Jul 22, 2015 07:30
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MrNemo posted:I'd say in the US there's a very different attitude towards the 50's so it couldn't really be said to be just because it was the period immediately preceding the sexual revolution, the beginning of 2nd wave feminism, etc. The US enjoyed a decade of almost unparalleled economic success, I'm think Rome post First or Second Punic war when the Republic was at it's height and the money/grain was rolling in. Not even hardcore anti-feminists in the UK pine for the 50's because Britain was a smoking ruin that was still enjoying rationing on certain foods for the early part of the decade and they slowly saw the remains of Empire slip away. A lot of it isn't even pining for the 1950's as they were but rather for a fantasy version of the 50's. When you see portrayals of the 50's it's always lily white suburbia. Every man has a smartly pressed suit that fits perfectly and he wears it to a job that pays real well. He has a lovely wife that is slightly younger than him, three children, and a perfect dog. They have all the modern appliances and the woman is just so happy her life is perfect that she'll have a perfectly crafted meal ready for the family at exactly 5 p.m. every day. America was prosperous and the problems it was having were hidden. The issue was that the problems were, you know, hidden. The 1950's led to the 60's. The 40's were also defined by WW2. This is another reason Americans pined for the 50's. The decades prior and after were nasty. poo poo Got Real. More importantly in the 1950's things were mostly quiet and stable and we got to ride on the wave of good feels after winning WW2 and telling ourselves we won Korea. Then the 1960's were dominated by Vietnam and a metric fuckload of turmoil at home. The buried problems suddenly burst into the spotlight while those that were wishing for the quiet of the 1950's didn't care if that meant shoving black people back in the box and forgetting they exist. Feminism was a threat to the idea that everybody knew their place. Men worked, women took care of the home, and that's the way it was done. The view was of course that this most certainly didn't cause problems and led to a society that functioned perfectly well. Which is why the phrase "gilded age" exists. The 1950's sucked for a gently caress load of Americans. Black veterans had to come back home to a nation that was still politically disenfranchising them. Women who went to school were expected to major in Husband Finding. A woman in medical school was expected to marry a doctor and drop out. Racial segregation was a massive problem with legal backing. America had massive issues brewing but they were covered up and hidden to many; the veneer of quiet and stability was a massive loving lie. Nobody wants the actual 1950's. They only want some faerie tale version of them that never existed and never will.
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Jul 22, 2015 07:51
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The 1950s existing in the US mind probably is better defined by the years 1953-1963 than it is by 1950-60 just as a general note.
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Jul 22, 2015 07:54
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Main Paineframe posted:And on the subject of deceptive statistics, attributing a right-wing skew to engineers because of the way they think or something like that seems like a dangerous jaunt into the realm of "correlation != causation", and the writeup implies some flaws in the sample population as well. Engineers tend to be male members of the dominant local ethnic group who make well over the local median income, the engineering curriculum is rigorous and designed to force out all but the most dedicated students, and engineering is a prestigious enough occupation that their titles are specially regulated in many countries. Those kinds of conditions practically breed conservatism. There's plenty of right-wing doctors in the US, too, likely due to the similar conditions the medical industry encourages. As for the sample population issues, the examples suggest they're counting software "engineers" in their sample, which is absurd. It is possible that it is more to do with their self-perception of themselves as objective, rational intellectuals than whether or not they have worked in a STEM field or done a STEM degree. After all, a high school dropout is one of the people who first gave a platform to NRx by being sympathetic to their seemingly rational approach. If someone had a degree in philosophy but wanted to project an image of being one of the in-group they could probably twist facts well enough to make it seem plausible. So, while the study purports to have found a link between engineers and conservatism, it may have actually just found the link between the self-perception of being part of an intellectual elite and (a certain type of) conservatism. Many software engineers do consider themselves as such even though, as you noted, they are only "engineers" in a very loose sense. In the immediate historical context, these movements are distinguished from other forms of conservatism and reaction by this focus on intellectualism. Obviously scientific racism and attempts to influence academia have always been present on the right, but in recent years the mainstream has shied away from putting emphasis on it. The anti-intellectualism of some other subgroups within American conservatism is decried by NRx and HBD... to a point. For the most part, creationism and climate change denial is rejected. While many of these right wing internet groups see religion as a positive social force, most are personally atheists. The accusation that academia is full of leftists is altered to "the humanities are full of leftists". There is an attempt to base the study of human society almost purely on evolutionary biology and quantitative statistics. Maybe I and the people conducting these studies have got it the wrong way around, and younger conservatives are fetishizing STEM because it currently enjoys a reputation as a group of "real subjects", as opposed to "Mickey Mouse" academia. Not only does printing black crime statistics next to white ones and saying "I rest my case" suggest a conservative interpretation, but it also appears more authoritative than alternative accounts. TL;DR: I think that the emphasis on STEM fields and methods more traditionally associated with natural sciences is important here, mostly because the supporters of these movements constantly assert that it is. I don't really have a strong opinion about exactly why this is- whether they adopt a mindset from working in certain fields, they are simply more likely to work in them because they're members of a traditionally conservative demographic, or in fact they don't know poo poo and find appeals to hard science to be a convenient weapon for their arsenal because of its social prestige.
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Jul 22, 2015 13:37
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Which is why the phrase "gilded age" exists. The 1950's sucked for a gently caress load of Americans. Black veterans had to come back home to a nation that was still politically disenfranchising them. Women who went to school were expected to major in Husband Finding. A woman in medical school was expected to marry a doctor and drop out. Racial segregation was a massive problem with legal backing. America had massive issues brewing but they were covered up and hidden to many; the veneer of quiet and stability was a massive loving lie. Nobody wants the actual 1950's. They only want some faerie tale version of them that never existed and never will. I thought "gilded age" referred to the early 20th century, like before WWI. Is there more than one gilded age or is that one called something different?
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Jul 22, 2015 21:26
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Alien Arcana posted:I thought "gilded age" referred to the early 20th century, like before WWI. Is there more than one gilded age or is that one called something different? Late-19th. Post-Civil War to just before Teddy Roosevelt got in and started taking a hammer to the Trust system.
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Jul 22, 2015 21:33
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Alien Arcana posted:I thought "gilded age" referred to the early 20th century, like before WWI. Is there more than one gilded age or is that one called something different? "Gilded age" applies to more than one period of U.S. history, really. I think the main one is the 19th century which is another era ancaps, lolbertarians, and conservatives seem to pine for but the phrase really works well for any time considered America's golden age.
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Jul 22, 2015 22:33
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I've never heard gilded age used for anything except late 19th century America
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Jul 22, 2015 22:47
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Alien Arcana posted:I thought "gilded age" referred to the early 20th century, like before WWI. Is there more than one gilded age or is that one called something different? there's only one Gilded Age in american history but you could use the phrase to refer to the fifties as well as a gilded age - a time of seeming prosperity and social harmony where the wealth is only given to a small subset of people and we just think there aren't any problems because we're ignoring them and pretending they dont really exist
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Jul 22, 2015 22:56
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ToxicSlurpee posted:"Gilded age" applies to more than one period of U.S. history, really. I think the main one is the 19th century which is another era ancaps, lolbertarians, and conservatives seem to pine for but the phrase really works well for any time considered America's golden age. While the term has been applied to other periods, with some justification, it came about specifically because of social criticism of the post-Civil War 19th Century's unbridled capitalism and industrialism grinding so many people/social institutions to shreds in returns for gaudily ostentatious wealth that in the end benefited precious few. More specifically, Mark Twain originated the drat phrase in his 1873 book of that name, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.
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Jul 22, 2015 23:20
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Bob le Moche posted:They're angry that things aren't going their way and they will blame literally everything else in the world for it (women, foreigners, gays, leftists, etc) except the white men who own and control everything. They hate democracy, and anything standing the way of the ruling class imposing their absolute will and total control, or any form of resistance by those below them. The white men at the top are strong and enlightened and blessed with the truth and anyone who opposes them is an irrational cancer on the purity of western society. Wow, I really feel like this hit the nail on the proverbial head. That makes it all the more depressing  This thread has been very cathartic for me so, as I'm extremely sensitive to this subject. I would LIKE to keep it open, because I feel like there's plenty more that could be said but if any of you guys are tired of it let me know. BornAPoorBlkChild fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jul 27, 2015 |
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Jul 27, 2015 19:09
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Helsing posted:3) The Dark Enlightenment and the rise of the far right in Europe are closely related Effectronica posted:The eternal challenge is how to remove him from any kind of power without bloodshed... Narciss posted:I'm not sure why this movement gets so much hate on this board, it's the only philosophic-political movement with any intellectual rigor to form in the last 30 years.
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Jul 30, 2015 01:53
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Not sure why people itt are so quick to hate on the only philosophic-political movement with any intellectual rigor to form in the last 30 years. Jealous that they didn't think of it first maybe?
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Jul 30, 2015 04:11
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This has all the intellectual rigour of Fascism. That is it's emotionally appealing to a certain kind of person and grabs random bits of scientific data to back those ideas up in a non-systematic and thoroughly opportunistic manner. I mean if you like the narrative it gives you of society go hog wild with it but don't pretend that any of these people have any kind of rigorous understanding of their own concepts and beliefs in a manner that would stand up to some form of academic scrutiny.
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Jul 30, 2015 04:41
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Morkies posted:Not sure why people itt are so quick to hate on the only philosophic-political movement with any intellectual rigor to form in the last 30 years. That is a weak-rear end troll. That's even weak for DnD and posters here are easy to troll. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 30, 2015 04:42
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MrNemo posted:This has all the intellectual rigour of Fascism. code word for Literally Hitler. I am suspect of their philosophy as well, but they may have some valid points. Just like Karl Marx. Rejecting Ideas automatically is akin to book burning,
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Jul 30, 2015 04:54
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Zeroisanumber posted:That is a weak-rear end troll. That's even weak for DnD and posters here are easy to troll. by assuming the troll was merely object level, you are in fact falling for it and being trolled (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 30, 2015 04:55
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Dahn posted:code word for Literally Hitler. I was actually thinking more of Mussolini and some of the aspects of eugenics and scientific racism that was popular on the right in the 20's and 30's. Nazism tended to be even more insanely schizophrenic regarding ideology and I don't think the approach of these people warrants the level of outright hostile and aggressive racism that comparison would bring. Perhaps it could be closer to a modern Futurism with a reactionary-conservative social order? I mean it's somewhat incoherent simply on the face of it that a radically new level of technological development should somehow engender returning to a very poorly defined form of social structure which was kind of limited to Western Europe and emerged following the gradual disappearance of the Imperial Roman state in that area. Especially considering that Europe didn't really begin to thrive until after much of the power of feudal lords, etc. had been greatly reduced and their infrastructure and resources more strongly tied into the nation state. It's a marriage of the elitism that appeals to Libertarians combined with the a romantic sense of history and desire to impose a social order that grants priviliges to the groups they're more comfortable with justified by a shallow appeal to cherry picked data. I'm also hoping the troll was someone who wanted to make a similar point but was too lazy to actually type this crap out.
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Jul 30, 2015 05:21
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The dorks and their rhetoric remind of muslim terrorists who are also disproportionately engineering or medicine graduates. They're kind of like that, except in a position of comfort and power so all they can do is whine about how they can't get laid and minorities are unsightly.
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Jul 30, 2015 05:23
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MrNemo posted:I was actually thinking more of Mussolini and some of the aspects of eugenics and scientific racism that was popular on the right in the 20's and 30's. Nazism tended to be even more insanely schizophrenic regarding ideology and I don't think the approach of these people warrants the level of outright hostile and aggressive racism that comparison would bring. Perhaps it could be closer to a modern Futurism with a reactionary-conservative social order? I mean it's somewhat incoherent simply on the face of it that a radically new level of technological development should somehow engender returning to a very poorly defined form of social structure which was kind of limited to Western Europe and emerged following the gradual disappearance of the Imperial Roman state in that area. Interesting I always considered Mussolini's flavor to be a cut and paste job that replaced "Aryan" with "Aryan and Mediterranean". I had always placed the blame for the Dark Ages in the lap of the church. The aggressive suppression of knowledge that didn't conform to it's world view. Monarchies grew stronger after the dark ages until they were destroyed by the merchant class and printing press. I would argue that Libertarians have a strong sense of self, and Fascists have a strong sense of "the group" (whatever that group is). These two things seem incompatible.
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Jul 30, 2015 15:17
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Dahn posted:I had always placed the blame for the Dark Ages in the lap of the church.
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Jul 30, 2015 15:27
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Yeah there's no such thing as the dark ages. The fall of Rome meant that most of the Roman ways of doing things stopped being practical because they were dependent on a lot of Roman institutions which kind of got annihilated during the collapse of the Empire, what you're left with is the less industrialised approach used throughout most of Europe that wasn't Romanised, but those cultures continued to develop new ways of doing things, sometimes cribbing bits from Rome but also adapting to the limitations of their society. The nominal borders of the Roman empire expanded much faster than its culture did, and while parts of it were quite Romanised, a lot of it was not. Which is further exacerbated by the migrations that were going on during the decline of the western Empire bringing in a bunch of their own ideas about society and technology. In some ways you can look at it as the veneer of Roman-ness being destroyed and the underlying cultures reasserting themselves while drawing from the experiences of living as part of the empire, leaving you with more of a fusion of Roman and native culture and technology. In some ways this was happening even before the fall of the empire because the late Roman empire took a lot of ideas from the people it fought, the legions didn't tromp around with Gladius and Scutum and Lorica Segmentata during the late imperial period, they carried long swords, oval shields, and wore chain mail, because it worked better and was closer to what the locals were making and using already. In either case the Church didn't have much to do with it beyond being one of the few places you'd find books and literacy for quite a long time.
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Jul 30, 2015 15:47
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Fascism as opposed to Nazism didn't have nearly as much focus on racial issues, nor did they totally reject old social institutions or values. So while the Nazis were trying to make every facet of society from Unions to Church an aspect of Party membership, the Fascists were happy for those institutions to remain in their form so long as they were willing to be subservient to the State. I meant Libertarian in a somewhat derogatory sense of the whole 'Randian/objectivist' schtick that kind of descends from Nietzsche, the idea that the State basically suppresses the great individuals and by setting them free society as a whole would benefit (and of course supporters of this all tacitly or explicitly believe themselves part of this elite). I think that sort of mindset is pretty popular in Silicon Valley and the other areas where the DE seems to have caught on. Fascism at its core viewed the State as one subordinated to the Ubermensch, that elite who would naturall suborn other weaker people. They sought to codify and legalise what Nietzsche saw as a natural state of affairs. In that sense they've just latched onto a romanticised vision of a period in the past as the model for the State rather than some of the Futurist elements that inspired Fascism (which believed the modern state and society should be organised along more rational, planned lines). They just think that model is some natural fit for humanity and that the masses are really ignorant and need to be controlled and dominated again. It's really a natural extension of that thought in Libertarianism. Some people will naturally rise to the top so why not just only lavish learning and freedom on those people? I think blaming the 'Dark ages' (it should be noted that term is pretty problematic as there wasn't really a loss of knowledge so much as certain areas of knowledge lost their utility due to the breakdown of a larger state system and the infrastructure to actually use some technologies went away those techniques were lost but that was due to the infrastructure fading away and needs changing rather than suppresion of knowledge) on the Church is a simplistic view of history. It's one that's been fairly popular, I think (though this is totally conjecture on my part) due to the rise of Protestant/atheist intellectuals of the Enlightenment who viewed Catholic Europe as backwards, elitist and Mystical in worship and kind of applied those attitudes backwards in history. (c.f. Gibbons argument that Rome basically fell because of Christianity) It's an image that's been pretty much stuck in the popular imagination ever since. The Church took over a lot of the functions of the Roman state as it crumbled in the West but was hardly immune from the same social pressures as everyone else. The ability to read and write wasn't exactly a priority when your average peasant had to spend 7 days a week tilling the soil or harvesting to feed himself and pay food rent or whatever. The barbarian tribes moving in largely didn't value literacy originally and didn't maintain a civil service that rewarded such knowledge so literacy outside the church largely fell away. Hell literacy inside the Church fell away quite a bit. There was a lot of interesting intellectual work going on in the Church at the time, since basically all Late Ancient/Medieval thought was going on in the Church in the West. The University system emerged out of the Church and regarded religion as a crucial part of education, it may not meet modern standards of openess and inclusiveness but considering the caricature of how the Church operated it was shockingly tolerant of dissent and even near heretical notions, provided they were very carefully couched The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps is currently covering Medieval philosophy. The church wasn't actively trying to educate peasants but peasants had never really been educated, the problem was the previous educated classes (the urban elites) had basically vanished and largely been replaced with powerful Big Men whose power derived from their ability to supply food, booty and plunder to their men. In this context being able to swing a sword well was infinitely more desirable than being able to argue the advantages of Aristotle's Metaphysics versus a Neo-Platonist viewpoint.
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Jul 30, 2015 15:48
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Dahn posted:I am suspect of their philosophy as well, but they may have some valid points. Name one.
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Jul 30, 2015 16:22
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Most of the stuff I've heard about the Dark Ages from actual historians was pretty consistent that they were called "Dark" because of a lack of reliable sources to fill in the history, not because overall knowledge was diminished.
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Jul 30, 2015 21:50
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