liberalism — The Great Whatever
Studying a historical event deeply I think can put one in a state of appreciation for it that transcends moralizing and cheerleading. To the people who see all history and all prospects for social action as a battleground of such cheerleading, and who see sobriety as fighting for the oppressor and implicitly approving of genocide, that mindset is dangerous. But I think in the end, lies just can't help you, only the truth can, so even if the lies feel morally good, you have to face the fact that they aren't helping anyone. I think a lot of people are scared that if they don't pick a side in the virtual reality as the events are ongoing, they're bad. And it narrows their field of vision to see the only way of respecting other people as adopting the blue side of that virtual reality.
I don't think that's possible in any sort of liberal or leftist way of thinking, and so it has to be abandoned altogether. Liberalism and adulthood aren't compatible, so liberalism and respect aren't compatible.
My wake-up moment with the whole classic self-flagellating white guilt thing was William T Vollman's Argall. — csalisbury
Certainly white people spontaneously, reflexively view mixed white-black children as black. — csalisbury
Wherever the leftist sees something that isn't perfect, where the empiricst of conservative impulse is to change oneself to match the world, the leftist impulse is to change the world to match oneself
But what does the conservative do about stuff he believes is bad? He defends the laws already in place. Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. A resigned, even ironic, acceptance. But still acceptance.Hence why the leftist believes that if something is bad, the best thing to do is illegalize it, and so on.
It also may in turn mean that there are certain things that, while true, cannot or should not be believed, because that would cause one to represent reality in an evil way, making one evil, and so unpleasant truths have systematic reasons to be denied or at least suspended in various forms of doublethink.
it will perpetually be calling for immediate radical change and the dismantling of deep institutions, in favor of new institutions with no historical roots that better match reality as it ought to be. — The Great Whatever
I don't talk about it, because that would be an unwise career move. It's implicitly understood in academia that you get with the program. — The Great Whatever
Haven't read the book so I can neither praise nor criticize it. But perhaps your source of knowledge about self-flagellating white guilt should come from experience and first hand observation rather than from Vollman's (or anybody else's) book.
In your life experiences, do you find white people who flagellate themselves about their white guilt? Have you witnessed ordinary white people engaging in behavior toward blacks, asians -- whoever -- that would merit self-flagellation?
Do you consider strict guidelines about how one may or may not depict God leftist by virtue of their focus on representation? — csalisbury
The conservative, by definition, does not change. After all, the world doesn't change - the sun rises and the sun sets. But while he doesn't believe anything essential changes, he does concede that the world is in flux. So he reacts, meeting this or that irruption with force, in order to restore things to the way they were. He may not try to change the world to serve the observatory, but he's endlessly vigilant against the weeds that threaten his well-manicured garden. The conservative changes, a bit, but he changes to stay the same. — csalisbury
This means that leftism fundamentally privileges representation over reality in a certain systematic way. — The Great Whatever
The leftist has an a priori idea of how the world ought to be, and is outraged that it is not that way. — The Great Whatever
The leftist has an a priori idea of how the world ought to be, and is outraged that it is not that way. The leftist proposes that the world ought to be changed to be that way, preferably as swiftly and with as little compromise as possible. — The Great Whatever
Wherever the leftist sees something that isn't perfect, where the empiricst of conservative impulse is to change oneself to match the world, the leftist impulse is to change the world to match oneself. Rather than meeting a pre-existent standard, like the conservative, the leftist protests that the standard is wrong, and ought to be place elsewhere. Hence the leftist generally does not seek to be beautiful, but to redefine the ugly as beautiful, because he believes, at bottom, that there is no substance to the world other than what he places on it, and so there is a kind of delusion or fantasy of power and control, reflected in the desire for central planning in government and statism generally. — The Great Whatever
All of these, I believe, are features of childhood. The confusion of representation and reality (lack of object permanence), the belief in the malleability of the world to one's desires, the refusal to face unpleasant truths, the insistence that everything ultimately be molded to one's wishes. This creates a desire for childlike narratives and a liking for comic books, superheroes, and so on, along with simplistic moral axes of oppressor-oppressed that create a sort of identity-based template for knowing who is in the wrong when, to emphatically and uncompromisingly support the side that is being hurt by the ones in the wrong. This in turn leads to the basic oppressor/oppressed distinction, which has no fundamental way of being questioned, but only multiplied and complicated by infinitely expanding axes of oppression based on increasingly minutely defined representational categories... — The Great Whatever
What I meant was simply that white people literally see a half-white half-black person as black. That's the reflexive reaction. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that they don't see them as devoid of desires and fears. — csalisbury
Maybe so, but reactive law is incredible. Again, it's what built England. You wait for a problem to arise, then judge when you have to on what ought to be done. Over the years an intricate, deeply woven house of natural institutions is built. The leftist by contrast is Cartesian, and demands that an entire constitution be written up from scratch, on the spot, and immediately enshrined, not in response to the organic problems the world rises and solving them, but from an a priori conception of the way the world ought to be.
he conservative is wise enough to confront the problems that arise as they are and then determine what ought to be done. The leftist on the other hand demands that things be built from scratch based on ideals. — csalisbury
I think that leftism isn't sustainable and collapses societies, often with a high toll in human suffering.
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