I started this one thinking he's suffered a loss, he has an awe-inspiring responsibility to his kids, maybe he's a changed man.
Man is he not.
The problem with conservatives is the more you hammer the point home the more they thank you. You're getting hammered. Don't thank your server! That's for paid actresses at the end of certain videos that shouldn't exist because no one would want that for their child.
To the point of the article.
I've taught a lot. College kids, tier 1, hard subjects. In my teaching I learned to repeat myself. No matter how many times I've seen this exercise or experiment, for the student it is the first time. It's pre-first-time.
So I adopted a rule: For me it is always the first time. It worked by all measures.
This is what Yarvin is doing here. He's repeating himself. For you.
If it isn't Nock, "The ideology of the oligarchy is an epiphenomenon of its organic structure." is damn close.
One might ask "is Nock the right thing to repeat?" He puts a lot of other material around it, and that may help some people, and maybe helping those people is a positive.
At the end of the day, Yarvin's and my own repeating serves a filtering function. I was a cog that ensured buildings will stay up and cars won't burst into flames.
Yarvin is a cog that ensures you are ruled properly.
Thanks to GM I am more and more thinking of everything only in terms of “power”. Both sides of the radio dial seem even more idiotic.
In groups, and on average this power has to do with coherence of coalitions.
In individuals it has to do with skills.
Our host has mad skillz, and I’m always skywheeling on the high updrafts of his prose, looking to swoop down and peck at the Diamond-perfect fires he’s set for us.
So here's what I'm struggling with on this one. You say "You are going to lose" as if that were a bad thing.
Trite as it may sound, I can't get around the idea, central to Christianity, that the only way to truly win is by losing. More precisely, the Christian idea is that the only way to truly live is by dying, death being a prerequisite for resurrection.
I do find myself sympathetic with your take on Greer/Meadowcroft/et al. It's as if they're still pretending that everything can be put right in the Shire as long as the hobbits just keep doing what they've always wanted to do. Only they're maintaining that pretense not only long after the Nazgul have crossed the borders, but even after Saruman and his southerners have set up shop and torn up the Hill.
The time for pottering around in the garden was past long before now.
I just have this sinking feeling that you're going to tell us that the real way out is to make sure we use the One Ring good and hard.
What are "conservative"/Traditionalist things that even many far Left elites and most people like/enjoy/miss. Formal dressing up. Old architecture. Manners. What "conservative/Traditionalist" things have modern strip-mall, casual chinos, Trump raging on twitter conservatives abandoned? Formal dressing up. Old architecture. Manners. There's a reason all the new wave of American Tankies wear ties.
Regarding the "culture war", I think it's clear that the conservatives have lost whatever the war of 1995-2010 was called. The next war, against what is best referred to by the exonym "Successor Ideology", may turn out different. But it is certain to be won by those who fight, rather than those who simply prophesize victory.
"Before the war in the East Ramapo, New York school district, there was a truce. Local school officials made a deal with their Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbors: we'll leave you alone to teach your children in private yeshivas as you see fit as long as you allow our public school budget to pass. But the budget is funded by local property taxes, which everyone, including the local Hasidim, have to pay — even though their kids don't attend the schools that their money is paying for. What followed was one of the most volatile local political battles we've ever encountered."
But, you have to be REALLY organized. Mainstream conservatives are not organized. They weren't organized to beat Ron Paul in my legislative district in 2012 because they don't have "class consciousness".
This is pure intuitive observation of social trends, but I feel 30 years from now the hip in-crowd will be:
-more into traditional beauty
-less relativist
-less gay/victimy/effeminate
-more accepting of Christianity as a mythology and foundation
Will it be "conservative", no, it will be five times fresher than the blackest lesbian transgender is right now. But I'm with optimistic conservatives that we will see a cultural improvement as the pendulum swings away from our current miasma. Not a long term cure for oligarchy, not a turning back the clock. Quality of life will probably continue to slip --- but quality of culture will see its first upswing in our lifetimes. Not in the law books, in the novels.
To put it in GM terms, there is a power to truth itself, which grows in attractiveness the farther you drift from it. Most of us here already feel it keenly; many more will learn its luster as the contrasts become more defined.
Or maybe not :shrug: but I think this is the energy a lot of young conservatives are vibing on, which I'm not sure Curtis properly identifies and refutes.
"Meanwhile, what theory is so certain as this, That all theories, were they never so earnest, painfully elaborated, are, and, by the very conditions of them, must be incomplete, questionable, and even false? Thou shalt know that this Universe is, what it professes to be, an infinite one. Attempt not to swallow it, for thy logical digestion; be thankful, if skilfully planting down this and the other fixed pillar in the chaos, thou prevent its swallowing thee."
-Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, Chapter 1.2.VII. Contrat Social.
Recently started reading Carlyle after hearing Yarvin discuss him a few times. This quote has been with me for the last 2 weeks, figured I'd share it. I think it catches certain elements of Yarvin's current writing.
Fun Fact: "The meek shall inherit the earth" is a poor translation of the original Greek. It seems to imply that "the weak shall inherit the earth," or something similar. The original term meant something more like "those who keep their swords sheathed," or "decline to battle." In context, it did not imply weakness, but more, "those who may be strong, but with the prudence to choose their battles and stand down as often as possible" shall inherit the earth. It implies wisdom, not weakness.
Probably doxxing myself here, but as someone with the name Greer this was pretty funny to read. Never considered it a very preppy, even lacrosse, name but I might add that to my Twitter bio haha
Not to brag but I graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Classics and PPE from Claremont and have an MPP from LKY & Sciences Po and this one is unreadable. Either put the crack pipe down or get an editor. xoxo.
I would like to propose an analysis of our present-time regime using Marx's method. For instance, if you take the premise that our regime inhabits some contradictions (tensions) that could lead it to (r)evolve into something else, what are those contradictions? If you were to identify the classes that have class consciousness (ideology), what are they? I think it was a big mistake for Marx to identify the proletariat as a class. I think the hippies, broadly defined, were a class, though.
YARVIN IS BACK BABY
I started this one thinking he's suffered a loss, he has an awe-inspiring responsibility to his kids, maybe he's a changed man.
Man is he not.
The problem with conservatives is the more you hammer the point home the more they thank you. You're getting hammered. Don't thank your server! That's for paid actresses at the end of certain videos that shouldn't exist because no one would want that for their child.
To the point of the article.
I've taught a lot. College kids, tier 1, hard subjects. In my teaching I learned to repeat myself. No matter how many times I've seen this exercise or experiment, for the student it is the first time. It's pre-first-time.
So I adopted a rule: For me it is always the first time. It worked by all measures.
This is what Yarvin is doing here. He's repeating himself. For you.
If it isn't Nock, "The ideology of the oligarchy is an epiphenomenon of its organic structure." is damn close.
One might ask "is Nock the right thing to repeat?" He puts a lot of other material around it, and that may help some people, and maybe helping those people is a positive.
At the end of the day, Yarvin's and my own repeating serves a filtering function. I was a cog that ensured buildings will stay up and cars won't burst into flames.
Yarvin is a cog that ensures you are ruled properly.
Thanks to GM I am more and more thinking of everything only in terms of “power”. Both sides of the radio dial seem even more idiotic.
In groups, and on average this power has to do with coherence of coalitions.
In individuals it has to do with skills.
Our host has mad skillz, and I’m always skywheeling on the high updrafts of his prose, looking to swoop down and peck at the Diamond-perfect fires he’s set for us.
So here's what I'm struggling with on this one. You say "You are going to lose" as if that were a bad thing.
Trite as it may sound, I can't get around the idea, central to Christianity, that the only way to truly win is by losing. More precisely, the Christian idea is that the only way to truly live is by dying, death being a prerequisite for resurrection.
I do find myself sympathetic with your take on Greer/Meadowcroft/et al. It's as if they're still pretending that everything can be put right in the Shire as long as the hobbits just keep doing what they've always wanted to do. Only they're maintaining that pretense not only long after the Nazgul have crossed the borders, but even after Saruman and his southerners have set up shop and torn up the Hill.
The time for pottering around in the garden was past long before now.
I just have this sinking feeling that you're going to tell us that the real way out is to make sure we use the One Ring good and hard.
I hope not. But I wonder.
This is way too optimistic, they are not going to lose. Conservatives already lost, years ago
Meadowcroft has a response up now, at https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/roman-rhetoric-and-florentine-politics-a-reply-to-yarvin/
What are "conservative"/Traditionalist things that even many far Left elites and most people like/enjoy/miss. Formal dressing up. Old architecture. Manners. What "conservative/Traditionalist" things have modern strip-mall, casual chinos, Trump raging on twitter conservatives abandoned? Formal dressing up. Old architecture. Manners. There's a reason all the new wave of American Tankies wear ties.
Regarding the "culture war", I think it's clear that the conservatives have lost whatever the war of 1995-2010 was called. The next war, against what is best referred to by the exonym "Successor Ideology", may turn out different. But it is certain to be won by those who fight, rather than those who simply prophesize victory.
Since we're not allowed to comment on the great reset post, commenting here: since you asked where a school board runs a school system, one example did come to mind: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/534/a-not-so-simple-majority
"Before the war in the East Ramapo, New York school district, there was a truce. Local school officials made a deal with their Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbors: we'll leave you alone to teach your children in private yeshivas as you see fit as long as you allow our public school budget to pass. But the budget is funded by local property taxes, which everyone, including the local Hasidim, have to pay — even though their kids don't attend the schools that their money is paying for. What followed was one of the most volatile local political battles we've ever encountered."
Looks like they are still running it, which is pretty bad-ass: https://www.ercsd.org/Page/90
But, you have to be REALLY organized. Mainstream conservatives are not organized. They weren't organized to beat Ron Paul in my legislative district in 2012 because they don't have "class consciousness".
This is pure intuitive observation of social trends, but I feel 30 years from now the hip in-crowd will be:
-more into traditional beauty
-less relativist
-less gay/victimy/effeminate
-more accepting of Christianity as a mythology and foundation
Will it be "conservative", no, it will be five times fresher than the blackest lesbian transgender is right now. But I'm with optimistic conservatives that we will see a cultural improvement as the pendulum swings away from our current miasma. Not a long term cure for oligarchy, not a turning back the clock. Quality of life will probably continue to slip --- but quality of culture will see its first upswing in our lifetimes. Not in the law books, in the novels.
To put it in GM terms, there is a power to truth itself, which grows in attractiveness the farther you drift from it. Most of us here already feel it keenly; many more will learn its luster as the contrasts become more defined.
Or maybe not :shrug: but I think this is the energy a lot of young conservatives are vibing on, which I'm not sure Curtis properly identifies and refutes.
Regarding the meek, it is my understanding that the actual meaning of the word was “those who wield their sword wisely”
"Meanwhile, what theory is so certain as this, That all theories, were they never so earnest, painfully elaborated, are, and, by the very conditions of them, must be incomplete, questionable, and even false? Thou shalt know that this Universe is, what it professes to be, an infinite one. Attempt not to swallow it, for thy logical digestion; be thankful, if skilfully planting down this and the other fixed pillar in the chaos, thou prevent its swallowing thee."
-Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, Chapter 1.2.VII. Contrat Social.
Recently started reading Carlyle after hearing Yarvin discuss him a few times. This quote has been with me for the last 2 weeks, figured I'd share it. I think it catches certain elements of Yarvin's current writing.
Fun Fact: "The meek shall inherit the earth" is a poor translation of the original Greek. It seems to imply that "the weak shall inherit the earth," or something similar. The original term meant something more like "those who keep their swords sheathed," or "decline to battle." In context, it did not imply weakness, but more, "those who may be strong, but with the prudence to choose their battles and stand down as often as possible" shall inherit the earth. It implies wisdom, not weakness.
Probably doxxing myself here, but as someone with the name Greer this was pretty funny to read. Never considered it a very preppy, even lacrosse, name but I might add that to my Twitter bio haha
"The ideology of the oligarchy is an epiphenomenon of its organic structure" vaguely reminds me of Conway's law.
Not to brag but I graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Classics and PPE from Claremont and have an MPP from LKY & Sciences Po and this one is unreadable. Either put the crack pipe down or get an editor. xoxo.
I would like to propose an analysis of our present-time regime using Marx's method. For instance, if you take the premise that our regime inhabits some contradictions (tensions) that could lead it to (r)evolve into something else, what are those contradictions? If you were to identify the classes that have class consciousness (ideology), what are they? I think it was a big mistake for Marx to identify the proletariat as a class. I think the hippies, broadly defined, were a class, though.