Understanding the psychology of HBD/Racial Realism/Dark Enlightenment

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

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

My impression of these movements or groups is that at present they are still novel and fluid enough to attract people from a variety of backgrounds and stances, provided those people share a few common beliefs. If these movements stick around and gain any kind of traction then they'll probably coalesce around a more coherent and strict set of ideas but for now they're in that fun early part of movement building where the final outline of what is being built isn't yet set in stone.

As for what motivates these folks to join a movement that is seemingly trying to blend Mussolini and Tolkien? That's a complicated answer. The best suggest I could offer, at the risk of being somewhat reductive, is that the core membership are largely white, male and middle class individuals who feel, with a certain amount of justification, that they are currently history's big losers. On the one hand globalization is dramatically reducing their economic opportunities, but on the other hand they aren't being compensated with the gains that traditionally subaltern groups like women, blacks and gays are currently enjoying. In many specific cases I suspect you'd find that Dark Enlightenment types are nurturing some kind of specific grievance or believe they're somehow being held back. This at least seems to be the case for some related movements like MRAs, many of whom seemingly are incels or husbands on the losing sides of custody battles.

Of course this answer isn't entirely adequate because some of the leaders of the movement seem to live fairly comfortable lives working in the tech industry. Perhaps they feel threatened by women or the ability of women to say no to their desires but that's pure speculation on my part.

And ultimately, of course, some people join these movements not out of personal distress but because they find the ideas themselves appealing, much in the way that not all (or even necessarily most) Marxists are oppressed proletarians toiling under the bootheel of capitalism. An ethical or political system is, necessarily, also an aesthetic one, and it's perhaps not surprising that many internet dwelling nerds with backgrounds in STEM degrees might be attracted to a belief system that, in addition to flattering their egos, also presents a very black and white worldview with clearcut answers, well defined in and out groups, and a lot of references to their favourite media.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 20:35

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 07:28

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

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.

Of course from their perspective the white man isn't in control of everything, or at least not the right sort of white man.

One of the constitutive elements of their anti-democratic worldview is same critique that early neoliberal thinkers like Milton Friedman and James Buchanan leveled against the postwar Welfare state, and in particular the Johnson administration's "war on poverty", which basically runs as follows: academics and journalists manufacture social problems, then politicians tax society's producers and redirect some of their wealth toward "special interests" such as ethnic groups, women, unions, corporations, etc. This creates a constituency who will now indefinitly contribute money and/or vote for the politicians / political parties who are redirecting income toward the special interest. Thus academics, politicians and special interest groups form a sort of positive feedback loop in which the size of government grows indefinitly, with the ever growing bill being shoved off onto the business men.

This has been a popular belief narrative amongst conservatives and some liberals for a long time (and it even has an element of truth in it). It's a major theme of Samuel Huntington's chapter of the 'Crisis of Democracy' report from 1975 and also a big theme of Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.

The Dark Enlightenment seems to takes this line of thinking to its extreme conclusion and basically says "this isn't a perversion of democracy, this is the essence of democracy; the creation of a class of corrupt politicians redirecting the wealth of society to welfare dependent poors and the perverted arts." Therefore, they claim, democracy must be recognized as the downfall of western civilization.

There is, not coincidentally, more than a bit of overlap with fascism here (also, arguably, a dash of repurposed Leninism), which also claims that the apparent rulers of society are not really in charge, because there's actually some nefarious group of shadowy enemies pursuing a sinister globalist agenda who has taken power away from society's rightful rulers (who are, of course, me and people like me).

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 22:10

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

Yeah, most of these ideas are pretty old. You can read discussions from the convention that drafted the US constitution and read the exact same sort of concerns being aired about how giving poor people the franchise will lead to the redistribution of all wealth.

The only really novel thing about the Dark Enlightenment is the fusion of a bunch of old school conservatism, white nationalism and libertarian economics with a lot of references to nerd culture. I don't really think this is a movement that is likely to take off. At best, it may be that some people who grow up reading this poo poo in High School and University will eventually become involved in mainstream political activity and perhaps smuggle a small amount of this thinking into the mainstream with them. Overall, though, I think the only reason we're talking about these guys is because of their relatively novel and attention grabbing rhetoric. They are more open about hating democracy, and they fuse that with a lot of references to Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Matrix and other juvenile entertainment franchises.

I think it's reasonable to speculate about the rise of reactionary movements but I doubt the Dark Enlightenment will ever gain any kind of mass following. They're too far removed from the issues that normal people give a poo poo about. I suspect there are other groups with basically similar ideologies who could probably develop into mass movements a lot faster than a bunch of internet spergs who refer to themselves as the Dark Lords of the Sith or the Numenorians or whatever the gently caress they call themselves now.

These guys are sociologically interesting but not particularly threatening.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 22:32

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

There's a pretty good thread in PYF on the Dork Enlightenment and I believe it includes some of those hilarious trading cards.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 22:35

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

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

They don't just overcook a burger. :tinfoil:

Race Realists posted:

Believe it or not, no revulsion here. Im mostly just fascinated by the whole thing.

The way they're so sure they have whole world figured out.

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

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

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

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 23:49

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

Tetracube posted:

oh poo poo, this thread caught a live one

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

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

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ronya posted:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 05:56

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

Nessus posted:

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

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

quote:

The Dark Enlightenment Exposed

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

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

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

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 06:04

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

anchoress posted:

that article was a big troll iirc

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

# ¿ Jul 2, 2015 06:39

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

ronya posted:

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

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

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

So if I understand you correctly then you're suggesting that around the time that neoliberalism and globalism became the dominant ideologies of the mainstream American establishment there was a parallel shift among some demographics toward scientific racism and Austrian economics. This, combined with fears of a One World Government and a lot of resentment toward feminists and blacks, produced the core ideological suppositions of the contemporary far right, including NRx.

If that's your position then I certainly don't disagree with the fundamentals of your analysis. The late 1980s and early 1990s certainly saw major transformations within basically all of America's political tendencies, whether they were on the right, the left or firmly within the establishment.

However, I'm not sure whether this period was formative for the advocates of NRx specifically. They obviously navigate the same far right ideological ecosystem that was heavily reshaped by the events of the 90s, but it seems mistaken to cite that as their formative period. They're seemingly of a more recent vintage. For one thing, they are really a movement that is very hard to imagine without the internet, which wasn't as much of a cultural force back then. Also they bring in some novel ideas like advocating monarchical government and openly breaking with any allegiance, even rhetorical, to democracy or egalitarianism.

Race Realists posted:

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

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

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

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

I could go on, but you get the point.

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

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

but i guess its just me then

I think that the rise of the far right in Europe, the electoral success of Syriza in Greece, the decline of the Liberal party in Canada, the growing numbers of internet reactionaries and internet Marxists, and a million other things besides, all share some root causes: namely a bad economy, increasing competition for a scarcer pool of decent jobs, and a widespread sense of decline among some of the citizens of the first world democracies.

But while the success of these groups might in part be attributable to common causes, that doesn't mean that they can all be treated the same. The European far right may share some racialist ideas or even a reverence for monarchy with the thinkers of the Dark Enlightenment, but that doesn't mean they're directly rated.

The European far right actually has the makings of a genuine mass movement, and under the right set of conditions it might actually achieve some major political success. The Dark Enlightenment, by contrast, has no mass basis and doesn't want one. According to Nick Land they are practicing a form of "anti-politics" that involves an almost total exit from contemporary structures of political life. I I understand his article properly he advocates waiting until genetic engineering or other technological advances elevate the Dark Enlightenment ubermensch into their position of natural superiority rather than wasting time trying to seize control of political institutions.

So while there are no doubt some very broad shared causes I don't really see the Dark Enlightenment was being the same kind of movement as the National Front or BNP, and for that reason I do not find them particularly threatening.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 06:40

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

It is a STEM thing though, if some researchers are to be believed.

quote:

They say they believe in freedom and share our values. They say a few bad apples shouldn�t bring down judgment on their entire kind. Don�t be fooled. Though they walk among us with impunity, they are, in the words of Henry Farrell, a political scientist at George Washington University, �a group that is notoriously associated with terrorist violence and fundamentalist political beliefs.�

They are engineers.

Farrell, of course, was kidding. He posted that comment on a blog shortly after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (confessed Al Qaeda operative and engineering student) tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit last winter. But the satire was rooted in a statistical fact: in the ranks of captured and confessed terrorists, engineers and engineering students are significantly overrepresented. Maybe that�s a numerological accident. The sociologist Diego Gambetta and the political scientist Steffen Hertog don�t think so.

Each month, Gambetta and Hertog�s database grows. Last December, Abdulmutallab�s attempt over Detroit. In February, Joseph Andrew Stack, a software engineer, crashed his plane into I.R.S. offices in Austin, Tex. In March, John Patrick Bedell, an engineering grad student, opened fire at an entrance to the Pentagon. In early May, Faisal Shahzad (bachelor of science in computer science and engineering) was arrested at Kennedy Airport for a failed attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square. Also in May, Faiz Mohammad, a civil engineer, was caught at Karachi�s airport with batteries and an electrical circuit hidden in his shoes. And going back, of the 9/11 conspirators who had been educated beyond high school, eight studied engineering. As this list suggests, the phenomenon isn�t confined to Muslims or Middle Easterners.

In fact, thinking in terms of religion, nation and class has failed to explain why, for example, out of thousands of normal-acting sons of middle-class, moderate Muslim families from Nigeria, apparently only Abdulmutallab took the dive into terrorist plots. On the familiar social-science instruments, he looks the same as countless nonterrorists. What are we missing?

In a paper published last year in The European Journal of Sociology, Gambetta and Hertog argue that the engineer-terrorist connection is part of the answer: it is a new window onto what Gambetta calls the �hidden logic� of society. Though the difference in susceptibility is very small � �it�s like saying the probability that you will be struck by lightning is one in a million,� Gambetta says, �and the probability for an engineer to be struck by lightning is four in a million� � it is, they say, real.

For their recent study, the two men collected records on 404 men who belonged to violent Islamist groups active over the past few decades (some in jail, some not). Had those groups reflected the working-age populations of their countries, engineers would have made up about 3.5 percent of the membership. Instead, nearly 20 percent of the militants had engineering degrees. When Gambetta and Hertog looked at only the militants whose education was known for certain to have gone beyond high school, close to half (44 percent) had trained in engineering. Among those with advanced degrees in the militants� homelands, only 18 percent are engineers.

The two authors found the same high ratio of engineers in most of the 21 organizations they examined, including Jemaah Islamiya in Southeast Asia and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Middle East. Sorting the militants according to their 30 homelands showed the same pattern: engineers represented a fifth of all militants from every nation except one, and nearly half of those with advanced degrees.

One seemingly obvious explanation for the presence of engineers in violent groups lies in the terrorist�s job description. Who, after all, is least likely to confuse the radio with the landing gear, as Gambetta puts it, or the red wire with the green? But if groups need geeks for political violence, then engineering degrees ought to turn up in the rosters of all terrorist groups that plant bombs, hijack planes and stage kidnappings. And that�s not the case.

Gambetta and Hertog found engineers only in right-wing groups � the ones that claim to fight for the pious past of Islamic fundamentalists or the white-supremacy America of the Aryan Nations (founder: Richard Butler, engineer) or the minimal pre-modern U.S. government that Stack and Bedell extolled.

Among Communists, anarchists and other groups whose shining ideal lies in the future, the researchers found almost no engineers. Yet these organizations mastered the same technical skills as the right-wingers. Between 1970 and 1978, for instance, the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany staged kidnappings, assassinations, bank robberies and bombings. Seventeen of its members had college or graduate degrees, mostly in law or the humanities. Not one studied engineering.

The engineer mind-set, Gambetta and Hertog suggest, might be a mix of emotional conservatism and intellectual habits that prefers clear answers to ambiguous questions � �the combination of a sharp mind with a loyal acceptance of authority.� Do people become engineers because they are this way? Or does engineering work shape them? It�s probably a feedback loop of both, Gambetta says.

Economic frustration also matters, Gambetta says. In their sample of militants, there was only one homeland out of 30 in which engineers were less common: Saudi Arabia � where engineers have always had plenty of work. But �engineers� peculiar cognitive traits and dispositions� made them slightly more likely than accountants, waiters or philosophers to react to career frustration by adopting violent, right-wing beliefs.

William A. Wulf, a former president of the National Academy of Engineering, is, no surprise, no fan of the Gambetta-Hertog theory. �If you have a million coin flips,� he says, �it�s almost certain that somewhere in those coin flips there will be 20 heads in a row.� The sample of militants Gambetta and Hertog used was simply too small for them to be sure they haven�t stumbled into a meaningless numerical accident, he says. The theory, according to Wulf, misrepresents what engineers are about. �A person who is rigid,� he says, �is a bad engineer.�

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 19:28

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

Crafting a narrative that fits your beliefs and ignores contradicting evidence is the norm for human thinking. Some ideologies might be a bit more prone to it than others but I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people across the political spectrum in my life and as a rule the majority of people are like that to a greater or lesser extent.

My point being: an explanation of why these particular ideas are apparently so appealing to some people requires a deeper analysis than just "they craft a narrative and ignore the contradictions to it". It's not in any way wrong, it's just insufficiently precise.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 20:01

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

Shbobdb posted:

Aside from the language used to justify the futurist ideology, what separates these people from third-way movements that have been around for forever?

I'm just seeing some run-of-the-mill fascists. You've got some enthusiastic modernists trying to recapture some former glory (or at least claim what is rightfully theirs), looks pretty similar to Italian Fascism. You've got some romantic, pagan-inspired enthno-nationalists, looks pretty similar to German Fascism. Then you've got a bunch of romantic Catholics who see theology as the breeding ground for a new thing that is neither Communism nor Capitalism -- which looks a lot like Fascism in Spain and Portugal. The only "new" element is the Protestant Fascism but both England and America had strong nascent fascist movements, it only looks new because we didn't trounce them in a war.

I don't have a deep understanding, but how is it not run-of-the-mill fascism?

The fascist movements you refer to attempted to cultivate a mass base and seize political power. The ambitions of the NRx movements seems to revolve around utilizing technology to do an end run around any kind of serious political mobilization. It's a fascist version of the singularity, which is perhaps another way of saying that it's fascism for shut ins who would rather photoshop themselves as Magic the gathering cards rather than try to seize state power.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2015 07:32

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

Shbobdb posted:

Not to be crass, but antisemites have tradionally viewed the Jew as a near insurmountable problem that needs to be overcome. The Jew is also a pernicious problem that keeps coming back, even if you do manage to overcome it. Hence the perceived need for a "final" solution.

Eco was talking about Italian fascism not contemporary (edit: to him) German fascism. Nazis took the perceived Jewish threat very seriously and kept escalating their approach to solving it.

I don't have a source handy but I believe that the German diplomats in Washington were regularly sending cables back to Hitler discussing which members of the American government were under Jewish influence. The Nazis didn't just exploit antisemitism for propaganda, it actually informed how they conducted foreign policy.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2015 18:24

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

If you're thinking through Ozymandias and it's themes then it's helpful to read the companion poem that was composed in the same time period by Shelly's contemporary and friend Horace Smith. Both poems deal with the same subject matter and present the same basic message but Smith's poem, while perhaps a bit less lyrical, is more direct in it's message:

quote:

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:�
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand."� The City's gone,�
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,�and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place

# ¿ Dec 21, 2015 21:56

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

I'm honestly not sure which of them is a funnier spokesperson for the 'movement'. On the one hand we've got the guy with the shaved head who goes out of his way to arrange a tasteful looking skull in the background of every video he films (you can just imagine the little internal calculations he does before each new video: "should I put the skull here on the desk? No no, it will look much classier if I place it over here on the shelf.") On the other hand we've got this fat, greasy looking man in an unkempt apartment who thinks that the most exciting and compelling position from which to tell your followers to protest in the streets is reclining on your leather sofa in an absolutely filthy unkempt apartment.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2015 23:03

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

OwlFancier posted:

In fairness if I had a skull I would probably want to look at it a lot, skulls are cool.

If you find yourself repeatedly rearranging the skull's location so that it will feature prominently in your next youtube rant about "the loving niggers" or how American women are "the most decadent sluts since the fall of Rome, going out to get gangbanged every weekend" then it may be time to take stock of your life and how you're spending it.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2015 23:09

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GunnerJ posted:

How do we know he doesn't own multiple skulls and has pre-arranged them with the rest of his furniture before ever filming anything?

Fair enough. How many of his ~~girlfriends~~ unrequited crushes have mysteriously dissapeared in the last few years?

On a related note: has anyone from the Dark Enlightenment tried to rehabilitate phrenology yet?

# ¿ Dec 21, 2015 23:12

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drilldo squirt posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD439RZ8LxQ I can't believe you didn't link this one.

Jesus, listening to this guy is like being stuck at a family dinner table inbetween your creepy sexist uncle and your dorky virgin cousin.

Also I feel like this comment from that video really sums up a lot of the Dark Enlightenment crap:

Here we've got someone who watches youtube videos about World of Warcraft yet yearns for a return to the imagined authenticity of the pre-modern world, and fixates on poorly misunderstood historical figures who are thought to embody those premodern values.

Helsing fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Dec 27, 2015

# ¿ Dec 27, 2015 18:03

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# ¿ May 1, 2016 21:11

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

We are long over due for some conservative academics to troll women's studies and sociology departments everywhere by declaring Foucault one of their own. A Foucauldian neoconservative philosophy would be pretty easy to develop, in fact he arguably got us most of the way there on his own.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 20:09

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

Jack Gladney posted:

Coming soon to a bookseller near you:

http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9781509501762

(Probably not by a reactionary and not thrilled with what it diagnoses in Foucault)

I've read articles discussing this book and while I'm planning to check it out this is really more about the Marxist left trolling the post structuralist left over the fact that their beliefs are politically impotent and internally incoherent.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 20:43

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

I thought of the ultimate philosopher of liberal modernity (which ironically means he is anticipating the philosophy of many forms of contemporary conservatism). Even better he's one of the few writers who is still genuinely scandalous enough that a lot of people will become angry or judgement simply knowing you've read him: De Sade. The guy had some... interesting... beliefs. For instance, he was a strong opponent of the death penalty but believed that murder should be legal.

Here's an excerpt from one of his numerous depraved novels where he anticipates everything from Ayn Randian style selfishness (complete with the arugment that it's the natural expression of human nature and even the deeper nature of hte universe) as well as a criticism of the SJW mindset, penned two centuries before SJWs were a thing.

A young woman named Therese sees a man being trampled by men on horseback in a field. She rushes to his side after the men have left and treats his wounds, much to his gratitude:

quote:

I continue to direct my steps toward Vienne, having decided to sell what remains to me in order to get on to Grenoble: I was walking along sadly when, at a quarter league's distance from this city, I spied a plain to the right of the highway, and in the fields were two riders busily trampling a man beneath their horses' hooves; after having left him for dead, the pair rode off at a gallop. Th an unluckier person than I; health and strength at least remain to me, I can earn my living, and if that poor fellow is not rich, what is to become of him ?"

However much I ought to have forbidden myself the self-indulgence of sympathy, however perilous it was for me to surrender to the impulse, I could not vanquish my extreme desire to approach the man and to lavish upon him what care I could offer. I rush to his side, I aid him to inhale some spirits I had kept about me: at last he opens his eyes and his first accents are those of gratitude. Still more eager to be of use to him, I tear up one of my blouses in order to bandage his wounds, to stanch his blood: I sacrificed for this wretched man one of the few belongings I still owned. These first attentions completed, I give him a little wine to drink: the unlucky one has completely come back to his senses, I cast an eye upon him a him more closely. Although traveling on foot and without baggage, he had some valuable effects rings, a watch, a snuff box but the latter two have been badly damaged during his encounter. As soon as he is able to speak he asks me what angel of charity has come to his rescue and what he can do to express his gratitude. Still having the simplicity to believe that a soul enchained by indebtedness ought to be eternally beholden to me, I judge it safe to enjoy the sweet pleasure of sharing my tears with him who has just shed some in my arms: I instruct him of my numerous reverses, he listens with interest, and when I have concluded with the latest catastrophe that has befallen me, the recital provides him with a glimpse of my poverty.

"How happy I am," he exclaims, "to be able at least to acknowledge all you have just done for me; my name is Roland," the adventurer continues, "I am the owner of an exceedingly fine chateau in the mountains fifteen leagues hence, I that this proposal cause your delicacy no alarm, I am going to explain immediately in what way you will be of service to me. I am unwedded, but I have a sister I love passionately: she has dedicated herself to sharing my solitude; I need someone to wait upon her; we have recently lost the person who held that office until now, I offer her post to you."

The man offers to give her a job in reward for her saving his life, and then leads her to his home - a remote castle in the mountains. Therese becomes anxious as she recognizes that this is clearly a bandit den and not the home of a legitimate and trustworthy man:

quote:

"What is the trouble, Therese?" he demanded, urging me on toward his fortress; "you are not out of France; we are on the Dauphine border and within the bishopric of Grenoble."

"Very well, Monsieur," I answered; "but why did it ever occur to you to take up your abode in a place befitting brigands and robbers ?"

"Because they who inhabit it are not very honest people," said Roland; "it might be altogether possible you will not be edified by their conduct."

"Ah, Monsieur I" said I with a shudder, "you make me tremble; where then are you leading me ?"

"I am leading you into the service of the counterfeiters of whom I am the chief," said Roland, grasping my arm and driving me over a little drawbridge that was lowered at our immediately we had traversed it; "do you see that well?" he continued when we had entered; he was pointing to a large and deep grotto situated toward the back of the courtyard, where four women, nude and manacled, were turning a wheel; "there are your companions and there your task, which involves the rotation of that wheel for ten hours each day, and which also involves the satisfaction of all the caprices I am pleased to submit you and the other ladies to; for which you will be granted six ounces of black bread and a plate of kidney beans without fail each day; as for your freedom, forget it; you will never recover it. When you are dead from overwork, you will be flung into that hole you notice beside the well, where the remains of between sixty and eighty other rascals of your breed await yours, and your place will be taken by somebody else."

"Oh, Great God!" I exclaimed, casting myself at Roland's feet, "deign to remember, Monsieur, that I saved you gratitude for an instant, you seemed to offer me happiness and that it is by precipitating me into an eternal abyss of evils you reward my services. Is what you are doing just? and has not remorse already begun to avenge me in the depths of your heart?"

"What, pray tell, do you mean by this feeling of gratitude with which you fancy you have captivated me?" Roland inquired. "Be more reasonable, wretched creature; what were you doing when you came to my rescue? Between the two possibilities, of continuing on your way and of coming up to me, did you not choose the latter as an impulse dictated by your heart? You therefore gave yourself up to a pleasure? How in the devil's name can you maintain I am obliged to recompense you for the joys in which you indulge yourself? And how did you ever get it into your head that a man like myself, who is swimming in gold and opulence, should condescend to lower himself to owing something to a wretch of your species? you nothing immediately it were plain you had acted out of selfishness only: to work, slave, to work; learn that though civilization may overthrow the principles of Nature, it cannot however divest her of her rights; in the beginning she wrought strong beings and weak and intended that the lowly should be forever subordinated to the great; human skill and intelligence made various the positions of individuals, it was no longer physical force alone that determined rank, 'twas gold; the richest became the mightiest man, the most penurious the weakest; if the causes which establish power are not to be found in Nature's ordinations, the priority of the mighty has always been inscribed therein, and to Nature it made no difference whether the weak danced at the end of a leash held by the richest or the most energetic, and little she cared whether the yoke crushed the poorest or the most enfeebled; but these grateful impulses out of which you them not; it has never been one of her laws that the pleasure whereunto someone surrenders when he acts obligingly must become a cause for the recipient of his gratuitous kindness to renounce his rights over the donor; do you detect these sentiments you demand in the animals which serve us as examples? When I dominate you by my wealth or might is it natural for me to abandon my rights to you, either because you have enjoyed yourself while obliging me or because, being unhappy, you fancied you had something to gain from your action? Even were service to be rendered by one equal to another, never would a lofty spirit's pride allow him to stoop to acknowledge it; is not he who receives always humiliated? And is this humiliation not sufficient payment for the benefactor who, by this alone, finds himself superior to the other? Is it not pride's delight to be raised above one's fellow? Is any other necessary to the person wh obligation, by causing humiliation to him who receives, becomes a burden to him, by what right is he to be forced to continue to shoulder it? Why must I consent to let myself be humiliated every time my eyes fall upon him who has obliged me? Instead of being a vice, ingratitude is as certainly a virtue in proud spirits as gratitude is one in humble; let them do what they will for me if doing it gives them pleasure, but let them expect nothing from me simply because they have enjoyed themselves."

Having uttered these words, to which Roland gave me no opportunity to reply, he summoned two valets who upon his instructions seized me, despoiled me, and shackled me next to my companions, so was I set to work at once, without a moment's rest after the fatiguing journey I had just made. Then Roland approaches me, he brutally handles all those parts of me designation of which modesty forbids, heaps sarcasms upon me, makes impertinent reference to the damning a brand Rodin printed upon me, then, catching up a bull's pizzle always kept in readiness nearby, he applies twenty cuts to my behind.

"That is how you will be treated, bitch," says he, "when you lag at the job; I'm not giving you this for anything you've already done, but only to show you how I cope with those who make mistakes."

I screamed, struggled against my manacles; my contortions, my cries, my tears, the cruel expressions of my pain merely entertained my executioner....

"Oh, little whore, you'll see other things," says Roland, "you're not by a long shot at the end of your troubles - and I want you to make the acquaintance of even the most barbaric refinements of misery."

I was going to argue you could turn this into a pretty funny and comprehensive reactionary anti-modern philosophy but then I remembered that Hans Herman-Hoppe already exists.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 21:04

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

Jack of Hearts posted:

What the heck does this have to do with anything?

De Sade is literally part of the dark underbelly of the European Enlightenment. It seems perfectly natural to talk about him and his ideas. If you just want to laugh at grown men with shaved heads and fake skulls pretending to drink scotch while they rant about the fall of western civilization then there's a thread in PYF that does exactly those things.

But speaking more generally long winded digressions on tangentially related topics are kind of just my thing, so apologies if that's not your cup of tea.

Jack Gladney posted:

I'm sorry for going off topic with this, but if I want to read some Sade, what's the best or a good translation? It looks like the best options are an old Grove Press series from the 50s/60s and more recent translations from Oxford.

I don't know De Sade well enough to give an intelligent answer here. Most of the stuff I've read by him was in the form of free online editions of his work. If you want a hard copy then as a general rule a more recent translation is probably better because, like Nietzsche, De Sade didn't get very much scholarly interest or respect in the English speaking world until more recently.

The thing you need to keep in mind, though, is that De Sade writes pornography. It's pornography inflected with all kinds of weird and sometimes interesting comments on the enlightenment and modern society but it also gets really tedious reading page after page of his elaborate yet repetitive sexual fantasies and kinks. Personally I struggle to read more than short bursts.

This is a pretty good article on De Sade and how he's been interpreted. In "The Culture of Narcissism" Christpher Lasch (pp. 66-70) also discusses De Sade as representing the extreme logical conclusion of western individualism, "the glorification of the individual in his annihilation".

Ocrassus posted:

Is he honestly portraying the man in that story as an ideal example of the normative order of things? Reactionaries frequently fall afoul of the is-ought gap, but even then that text betrays a lack of understanding of what is, let alone whether it ought to be the case.

Well, I was suggesting that certain extreme anti-Democratic libertarians like Hans Herman-Hoppe have a philosophy much closer to De Sades worldview than it might appear at first glance, but De Sade himself wasn't exactly a reactionary. He was more of a mandman pervert and pornographer but he spent a good deal of the revolutionary and Napoleonic era in prison because of his perverted ideas and writings so it's not as though he was just a privileged aristocrat who decried the revolution. If anything his ideas were too extreme and revolutionary for the revolutionists themselves, which lead to the socially conservative Napoleon Bonaparte to have him arrested and imprisoned.

That having been said, I don't think De Sade can just be dismissed out of hand as a crazy guy who doesn't understand nature. As Lasch argues in that link I posted above his ideas have an uncanny resonance in contemporary culture even if most of us will naturally feel compelled to reject everything he's saying as utterly abhorrent, which is precisely why he's interested to read despite the many flaws you can find in his work.

# ¿ May 3, 2016 16:27

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Jack of Hearts posted:

De Sade's pornographic writings are so terrible that one wonders whether it was deliberate. He could write, when he wanted to.

Yeah after first becoming interested in him I found a book of stories by him in a second hand book store and figured it would be interesting to flip through them. They are uniformly awful and often amount to little more than an elaborate set up for a dick joke. And yet, in some of his books, there's definitely a sort of perverted genius at work. There's something so twistedly delightful about the logic here:

quote:

is not he who receives always humiliated? And is this humiliation not sufficient payment for the benefactor who, by this alone, finds himself superior to the other? Is it not pride's delight to be raised above one's fellow? Is any other necessary to the person wh obligation, by causing humiliation to him who receives, becomes a burden to him, by what right is he to be forced to continue to shoulder it? Why must I consent to let myself be humiliated every time my eyes fall upon him who has obliged me? Instead of being a vice, ingratitude is as certainly a virtue in proud spirits as gratitude is one in humble;

# ¿ May 3, 2016 22:32

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wiregrind posted:

Isn't that rubbish just based on (or an interpretation of) Nietzsche's "master-slave morality"?

It's a sardonic deconstruction of Christian morality that flips the script and argues that altruism is a sublimated form of selfishness and that charity and pity are disguised forms of domination so it's certainly in the same intellectual ballpart as Nietzsche, Schopenhaur and La Rochefoucauld, but De Sade was born a hundred years before Nietzsche so it's not based on him.

Charity can often be a form subtle way of expressing your superiority and power over another person. While this is hardly a conclusive demonstration of anything, this youtube video of a "homeless" man trying to give money to people (as opposed to begging for it) is a pretty interesting example of how angry people become when they become objects of charity rather than givers. People instinctively understand something that we're not supposed to acknowledge publicly, which is that being the object of charity and pity is contemptible and is essentially a way for our "benefactors" to lord it over us.

# ¿ May 4, 2016 18:21

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Peztopiary posted:

Sure, but that dude is arguing that all charity comes from a place of contempt. It's very Randian. If you feel contempt when you give someone a couple bucks, that's an indictment of you personally, not all Humanity.

^^*edit* That there are a lot of broken people doesn't mean that it's not useful to point out that finding the needy contemptible isn't normal. Dollar tipper people are rightfully derided.

Obviously people don't instantly feel contempt toward anyone they help, especially if the help is offered on an equal basis. It's when one person is systematically subordinated to another person, or when someone starts to feel outright pity for another human being, that the process slowly becomes toxic. Human emotions are complicated.

Tipping is a way of letting the customer exercise power over the server. Studies consistently show that this results in all kinds of bad outcomes. Female waiters are more subject to sexism and unable to fight back, attractive servers get higher tips than less attractive ones, whites get better tips than blacks, etc. It would be far better to eliminate tipping and pay everyone involved equal wages. Yet customers often react very badly when they learn they can't tip because it robs them of the opportunity to exercise control over the compensation given to the server.

When everything is going well people often mask what they are doing, even to themselves. They don't really want to acknowledge that their getting off on choosing how much of a tip the server deservs. But of course that's what they are doing and it's very enjoyable because it grants you a momentary sense of control over another person.

Jack Gladney posted:

It is demeaning to lose autonomy and to be reminded that you do not have autonomy. If you are a decent human being, you sometimes think about how not to humiliate others when doing for them what they cannot do for themselves.

The negative psychology works both ways. Both the giver and receiver of charity are changed by the act. It's harmless or even beneficial in small doses but when a society begins to institutionalize or depend upon the instincts of charity and pity to take care of the weak and forgotten members of that society it creates exactly the kind of Just-World-fallacy-inspired dystopia that much of North American society has degenerated into.

Liberals will pretend we can have massive inequality and then depend on the rich to generously sprinkle crumbs for the rest of us. Conservatives are even more horrid and suggest that the charity should be privately based. It would obviously be better to focus on reducing inequality rather than pitying the unfortunates and tossing them crumbs, but this solution isn't amendable to the people who desperately want to feel superior to their fellow human beings.

Pity is an ugly emotion.

# ¿ May 5, 2016 19:07

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 07:28

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

Conflating Rand's ideas with Nietzsche's suggests a lack of familiarity with one or both of those authors, as does suggesting that Nietzsche believed humans were inherently rational and selfish.

# ¿ May 8, 2016 17:38

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