I worry you underrate Schmitt's work. His writing on institutional legitimacy (Political Theology, Legality and Legitimacy, Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes) is predictive of current events at a very practical level. I agree the online right overfixates on The Concept of the Political (and without even reading Strauss' criticism!). To date, I haven't seen a more apt description of how procedural bureaucracies degrade into use of emergency powers and crises of legitimacy.
Still, I see the writing on the wall when it comes to using "Schmittian" as an anthropological term rather than to describe a branch of philosophy. I just hope that people will still read Schmitt despite the negative brand (or maybe because of it), similar to machiavelli.
My prior on continental philosophy being a waste of time is just too high for him to seem worth reading. We've got an Anglo-American analytic tradition which is far less obscurantist, and our political history gives more evidence of sense than the regime Schmitt supported.
I don't think Schmitt is obscurantist at all, unlike Heideggar or Hegel. Political theology is only 66 pages and not particularly dense by political philosophy standards.
Obscurantist, is doing a lot of work. I read Being in Time among his other work over the course of 3 years in a philosophy reading group. It was a slog, but for good reason. We eventually got to a point where we could see its strengths and weakness, which we wouldnt have if we labelled Heidegger an obscuratist and moved on.
Anglo American philosophy is not as clear about analyzing itself when it goes wrong. If Schmitt was a reaction to left wing policies overtaking liberalism and causing societal collapse then it’s perfect for now - the throngs of opposition used to be in that camp but became disillusioned enough to welcome a leveler. The opposition is only low IQ/ blind, degraded NPC’s and they need to be scared into acting normal again via an injection of ‘based’
Don’t have to. Anglo-American thinks there are 72 genders, only white people are racist, and people need two moms. If thought isn’t linked to culture it’s toothless.
The Nazis didn’t align with the law they created, having two systems simultaneously. The friend-enemy distinction was no longer apparent. If everyone left after the ‘flattening’ of Nazi triumph was an enemy and your only friend had a parallel institution working for them that wasn’t working for you, what use is legal or political thought? Just new violence and constant deceit. The state has also taken on too many enemies (Germany declared war on the USA even tho Japan wasn’t attacked)
Your examples stem from so-called "developments" in continental philosophy. Analytic political philosophy tends to be relatively timid, at least as far as humanities are allowed to these days.
Lol “analytic political philosophy” isn’t philosophy. It’s philosophy of science: social, meaning it’s empirical. It’s fully sponsored by bureaucracy and endorses the views of fallen Protestants. Germany also had these along with a large university system that’s been copied into American primary and secondary systems. It can’t and doesn’t exist in a neutral state, there is no vacuum unfilled. Much the like the regime of North Korea, institutions and their collapse are the domain of anthropology networks not ‘philosophy’; as ‘philosophy’ is what got you there - which is precisely the point.
If it came from continental philosophy, then Schmitt would be more applicable not less. You can’t ‘logic’ your way through an ecosystem that’s eradicated agency to the point it can’t even fix itself or continue without ‘becoming Hitler’ on both fronts. Analytically : If the reasoners themselves are prone to <either / or> being blind to the heresy that’s overtaken them +/- straight up agree with it, it’s likely boy a useful tool and most assuredly a proper lens that would aid the discovery process. Therefore you find one the one thats the best fit that undergraduates are forbidden to read, and was actually experienced by the author after publishing
Richard is getting Schmitt’s work experiencing resurgence wrong. Firstly, it isn’t taught in college, but it probably should be. Secondly it’s not taught in college because it describes the left and reacting to the new status quo they have created - they think and behave this way so the right should too else society is finished. Hence the right should adopt the methods. This all started with the alt-right/ lite and coincided with Trump. JD Vance became aware of it too
I read Schmitt in graduate school. There’s an avant-left tradition of engaging with his work (see, for example, Giorgio Agamben), as well as hard-right thinkers in general (most notably Heidegger). Basically, the postmodern left is thirsty for critiques of liberal modernity, no matter their origins.
It took you til now to notice some on the left believe all those on the right are fundamentally the same, all racist, all fascist, all homophobic, all sexist? It's not just Ganz it's probably a third of the left thinks this way.
Exactly. More, I'd say... especially after the emergence of Trump. The idea is that Trump and his supporters are a unified bloc (even though they're not), and that compels them to unify... around some truly terrible positions and ideas.
Agreed. And vice versa. The pendulum is not dampening, it's swinging more wildly. Constructive wave interference, increasing spikes. Soon: kill all trans, versus make all kids trans. Collapse world economy shutting off oil, versus deregulation til we literally bathe in it. Utter Andrew-Tate woman hate, versus utter Andrea Dworkin man-hate.
> I don’t believe that race determines human worth, although I would say that IQ is one factor that goes into the calculation. Is this the definition of Nazism?
Worth noting that the actual Nazis were *opposed* to IQ research, since it showed Jews as superior.
"That is not a value that Hanania holds, who openly and stridently believes that IQ and race determine human worth."
I thought this was funny when I saw it, because I recall you saying a while back that wealth (by contrast to IQ) is actually the most accurate determinant of a person's value. Obviously mentioning that here would scandalize Ganz even more, but he should at least get your weird idiosyncratic views right.
And yet he cheered for the (mistaken) projection that whites will become a minority in the US in a couple of years, around 2015. Repeatedly, though other times are hard to google. What kind of brain damage does that take, to *cheer* for that?
I think that there is an asymmetry between the core and fringe on the right and the left. On the right the fringe is the fringe, hitching their wagons to the normal rightwingers, while sharing stupid memes and all that (btw I think you massively overestimate the representation of the statue/anime userpics among normal people because you follow a lot of them and not normal people on twitter). On the left the fringe is the core, they define the language, the allowed arguments and modes of arguing, the entire fundamentally corrupted structure of understanding reality.
For example, a racist might vote for a Republican governor that promises to stop racial quotas in college. If he then comes to said elected governor and asks to ban black people from attending college, he is in for a rude awakening: the normal rightwing ideas behind those normal rightwing policies, that racial discrimination is unfair and inefficient, are not normie versions of the more extreme far right desire to ban black people from college, they both directly contradict it.
Or maybe an antisemite applies to a software company in a fire-at-will state, then ask the CEO to fire all Jewish programmers. Again, while from his point of view fire-at-will is preferable to various minority protections, the reason normal rightwingers also support it is the exact opposite to his reason.
So while I wouldn't expect the average normal rightwinger to explain ideological foundations for his positions, using fancy words like "supererogatory duty" etc, at least he is obviously immune to whatever attempted ideological muggings from the extremist fringe.
Not so with leftwingers. You can see it especially clear when the dissonance becomes unbearable and they try to sanewash the ideological positions they received from the insane core of the movement, arguing that "defund the police" actually meant "fund more police training" for example. Men are oppressors but feminism is for everyone. You can't be racist against white people but of course it's prejudice and bad when some blacks torture a white teen for being white. There are literally hundreds of snappy slogans and loaded terms that are to be accepted as the scientifically accepted dogma, but when they collide with reality moderate libs can only appeal to common sense and say that those slogans don't actually mean what they mean.
btw, a related concept is "unprincipled exceptions". I feel safe in the assumption that allowing gay marriage won't lead to allowing child marriage, because to the principle "let them do whatever they want in their bedroom" a leftwinger has a principled exception: "children can't consent". It's not an ironclad guarantee but a pretty damn strong guardrail on the slippery slope. For many many other left-wing policies there's no such guardrails, people defending them can only appeal to "it's common sense that we won't want to slide any further" and "it's only a few insane people who ask for this now", all exceptions without a principle supporting them.
You write about Obama, "And yet he cheered for the (mistaken) projection that whites will become a minority in the US in a couple of years, around 2015. Repeatedly, though other times are hard to google. What kind of brain damage does that take, to *cheer* for that?"
I think, as usual, you people of the right, are hyperbolising (good for creative writing though) and he probably didn't actually "cheer", but maybe he mentioned that this is a possible outcome given the data about reproduction trends, and the problem for you and your fellow racists, was that he was not outraged and determined to do something about 'the problem'.
As you say sometimes it is hard to google and find the truth you want to find.
But I've thought about it and I can't see why would anyone would have a problem with blacks outnumbering whites..... unless you were a racist? Can you explain what you think would be so bad if this were to happen?
I suppose the native people of your country were so lacking in elite human capital that it was a good thing you whites with your high IQ's outnumbered them but if high IQ is the answer to all question and leads to the best of all possible worlds, I'm still wanting to understand how whites beat the Chinese because the Asians, they have higher IQ's. Right?
First of all, Biden, not Obama. He was outright cheerful about it on several other occasions but it's impossible to get through the debunkening spam saying that in one particular case he wasn't admitting to encouraging it, he just presented it as inevitable and said that it's a good thing because diversity is our strength, so checkmate conspiracists!
Second, it's not about blacks outnumbering whites, it's mostly Latinos. But also other types of foreigners.
Then the foremost of considerations is this: losing the political power of the majority sucks. I mean, all right, if everyone agreed to the 90s liberal dream of a raceblind utopia, I'd be on board. But tell me, is other racial and ethnic groups' self-identification increasing or decreasing as whites are becoming a minority? Are we getting closer or farther from MLK's dream of not seeing color *as far as blacks themselves* are concerned, or are they and other minorities (I'm thinking Muslims in particular) becoming more and more race/group-conscious, getting into the mindset of pursuing their group's goals against the rest of the society, and this increase of race consciousness is explicitly encouraged by the academia? Is "colorblind" not an insult these days, meaning racist-lite? We are factually moving *away* from the colorblind utopia and it's explicitly encouraged.
Do you know what happens when a numerical minority holds a disproportional political and economic power, and then the majority gets woke to it and is told that it's because the minority are oppressors? Tutsi in Rwanda, Jews in Germany (and everywhere to an extent)? Why on Earth would you want to become that minority? Jews learned their lesson and created Israel with an explicit purpose of "never again", do like Jews, they know shit.
Then there's a bunch of lesser arguments that you can easily see if you flip the question: if you like foreigners so much, why don't you move to a foreign country? The joys include: having to conform to foreign cultural norms, enjoying poverty caused by some of said cultural norms (or local IQ, who knows), having to learn a foreign language (probably in your advanced age, when it's very hard), and again them being racist towards you in all small and large respects.
OMG, yes, losing the political power of the majority does suck.
It's character building though. so stop whinging and suck it up.
But just in case elite human capital like you doesn't understand 'character', ... it is like this.....if you say that someone has character, you mean that they have the ability to deal effectively with difficult, unpleasant, or dangerous situations.
I'm not American thank doG and more and more we notAmericans think you people who voted for Trump really need more character and a lot of luck going forward.
Thanks for sharing your pain and anger. I hope it helps you get through the next few years.
Yep so true, but nobody knows what intelligence is. Most people who study the concept agree that IQ does not equate to intelligence. Intelligence is a very good thing to have but it does not bestow the ability to make good choices. We can make better choices for sure but there are always unknowns.
And I think that character, whatever it is, is a part of intelligence that is not measured by IQ tests.
When we were poor and reliant on our government for welfare, not in Americia, and we couldn't afford something the kids badly 'needed', I would say, it's character building. They didn't appreciate that until they were grown up.
It's a probabilistic universe and random events create life.
The founders of the United States of Americia were very intelligent men and they differed in their ideas but came together to create something that has now been broken.
There is no united states, just an America that can never be great.
That guy sounds like the standard mid-wit enslaved by his own confirmation bias. Come up with a theory/outlook/viewpoint of the world, then overfit (or over-generalize, as the case may be) every observation into said paradigm.
Right. But he did do some things that made him seem like he was under the influence of the ideology that emanates from these quarters. How did these bizarre ideas reach all the way up to the President? That is the “they” that bedevils the right.
Your original question was how those ideas reached their way to the President. I sought to explain that. Why those ideas were popular among Warren staffers is another story.
I think the issue is the significant overlap of ideas/agendas that many on the Left share. The mistake of the rightoids is attributing it to a small cabal like, say, the CPUSA in the 1930s rather than multiple nodes of EHC/activists who share similar values. The various leaders of the Democrat Party could clamp down on, say, the trans craziness, but they can’t control the activists who spread this ideology. There is a degree to which EHC folks like Judith Butler, et al. influence the wider Left, who then épater les bourgeois Democrat, and this has the look of a cabal of sorts.
Many of the camps on the left: climate doomers, Corporate DEIers, Black identity politics activists, Muslim activists, Native American activists, Teachers unions etc literally hate each other and have no common beliefs apart from finding it easier to lobby Democrat politicians. Some actually want to kill each other.
Yes, that is all true but it’s also still true that among the Left (broadly speaking) there is some degree of value overlap, e.g., a member of DSA will dislike the Democrats but still support the meager welfare state benefits they dole out (pun intended), affirmative action, Net Zero by 2050 carbon pledges, anti-racism messaging, etc., etc. If there were not some overlap, there would be no point in speaking of the “Left”, e.g., teachers unions support DEI, etc. On the other hand, Hiram and Vernon Lewis claim that there really is no Left or Right, only various positions, and I am inclined in that direction.
I should add that in order for various PC or “left-wing” fads (e.g., trans, etc.) to gain mainstream support, these causes have to gain EHC support to some degree. How does that happen?
I'm about as straight down the center as you can get. Modestly left-leaning on some issues, more to the right on others. But I can tell the difference between the thoughtful and remarkably objective writing of Hanania and the unfiltered garbage spewed by many of the right, as well as lefties like Ganz.
At the end of the day, you and Trump want a world where people are not equal under the law, and are consigned to narrow fates because of inborn characteristics or the circumstances they were born into. I guess there are distinctions between you all, but who really cares when you’re all scum?
"It’s not just about Trump. This kind of lumping analysis is quite common on the right." This kind of lumping analysis happens everywhere! That's obviously true because you're describing a popular leftist thinker who does it! It would be trivially easy to come up with 1000 more.
Political belief is only secondarily about understanding reality or promoting policy. It's much more about us/them mentalities and in-group biases. This applies to EVERY ideology on the political spectrum. I think, in the age of Trump, one could make a decent argument that it's actually more prominent on the left now. How many leftists criticized BLM or feminism or trans rights during the past few years, and remained leftists? Conceptualizing you and your allies as a unitary bloc puts everyone else in a position of opposition, and many people take the next step and start to imply that all of the opposition is coordinated.
"What we call “conservatism” and “liberalism” are massive coalitions" ... It seems to me that something about modern mass democratic politics -- especially with electronic media -- relentlessly presses people towards the "us/them" or the "they... they... they..." logic that Hanania rightly deplores.
I may not want to lump all my opponents into one big "them" (and may even recognize the internal differentiaions within "their" coalition) but every time I go into the ballot box, or prepare a post on social media, that is how "they" are made to appear.
I believe Ganz has argued that your racism is the thing that is offensive and aligned with Nazi pathos. That also seems to be the thing you ultimately can’t dance around, and makes all your efforts at communication seem like a dance rather than honesty. To admit that lower IQ scores shouldn’t diminish people’s dignity, is also just not serious. On an individual level, this is possible because you can take the whole person into account (you can also compare it with the deficits of the exam). On the level of a population, it immediately becomes insane. What are you going to say? ‘What they lack for in cognitive intelligence, they make up for in emotional expression, such as music and other forms of art, which can be viewed as another form of intelligence.’? I hope this gives you insight to how you are being received. And that is just to explain why your arguments are offensive. Since you clearly want your writing to be taken seriously not just as descriptions but as policy prescriptions, you should recognize better when people do just that. Ganz’ critique, that you disparage Nazi gestures in order to better promote Nazi policies, is spot on for that reason. It may not be comprehensive. You probably do believe the brutality of the Nazi regime and extreme cruelty was immoral, not just inconvenient but you argue for the racism central to the pathos. And that’s the problem with your writing, in trying to be comprehensive you fail to get to the point. This may better explain why people are angry at you, than that they are bitter or hateful in general.
To put a finer point on it, arguing for racism by trying to persuade people why it’s not actually bad, will appear absurd to most people, especially those you may wish to persuade the most. You should grapple with that, rather than respond to it from such a bewildered perspective.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much! Spending your time ripping on Ganz while propping up yourself as the good guy makes me believe you missed the entire point of Ganz's writing. He hates Nazis. Many on the right shown tolerance for Nazis. Many in high positions on the right show tolerance or embrace outright Nazi philosophy. Thus, based on history, there is a fear of Nazis being in power. Remember, if you are at a table with 7 Nazis, it is a table of 8 Nazis. Instead of criticizing him and defending yourself - criticize Nazis
> This kind of lumping analysis is quite common on the right. It’s a staple of Alex Jones’ view of the world, where he’ll talk about how elites want to make you live in tiny apartments and be forced to get dozens of vaccines to be able to walk outside, and then as evidence he will present quotes from a UN official, a Hollywood actress, and a CDC guidance memo.
I feel like I'm missing a part of the argument. Why is this supposed to be a mistake on Alex Jones' part? If the UN, the CDC, and Hollywood all agree that you should live in tiny apartments and get dozens of compulsory vaccines, that seems like better support for the idea "elites want to make you live in tiny apartments and get dozens of compulsory vaccines" than what appears to be the alternative you have in mind, that the case for "elites want to make you live in tiny apartments and get dozens of compulsory vaccines" should be supported by three Hollywood actresses and one Broadway actor. That second example wouldn't be an argument about what elites think; it would be an argument about what actors think.
I worry you underrate Schmitt's work. His writing on institutional legitimacy (Political Theology, Legality and Legitimacy, Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes) is predictive of current events at a very practical level. I agree the online right overfixates on The Concept of the Political (and without even reading Strauss' criticism!). To date, I haven't seen a more apt description of how procedural bureaucracies degrade into use of emergency powers and crises of legitimacy.
Still, I see the writing on the wall when it comes to using "Schmittian" as an anthropological term rather than to describe a branch of philosophy. I just hope that people will still read Schmitt despite the negative brand (or maybe because of it), similar to machiavelli.
My prior on continental philosophy being a waste of time is just too high for him to seem worth reading. We've got an Anglo-American analytic tradition which is far less obscurantist, and our political history gives more evidence of sense than the regime Schmitt supported.
I don't think Schmitt is obscurantist at all, unlike Heideggar or Hegel. Political theology is only 66 pages and not particularly dense by political philosophy standards.
Obscurantist, is doing a lot of work. I read Being in Time among his other work over the course of 3 years in a philosophy reading group. It was a slog, but for good reason. We eventually got to a point where we could see its strengths and weakness, which we wouldnt have if we labelled Heidegger an obscuratist and moved on.
Anglo American philosophy is not as clear about analyzing itself when it goes wrong. If Schmitt was a reaction to left wing policies overtaking liberalism and causing societal collapse then it’s perfect for now - the throngs of opposition used to be in that camp but became disillusioned enough to welcome a leveler. The opposition is only low IQ/ blind, degraded NPC’s and they need to be scared into acting normal again via an injection of ‘based’
Don’t have to. Anglo-American thinks there are 72 genders, only white people are racist, and people need two moms. If thought isn’t linked to culture it’s toothless.
The Nazis didn’t align with the law they created, having two systems simultaneously. The friend-enemy distinction was no longer apparent. If everyone left after the ‘flattening’ of Nazi triumph was an enemy and your only friend had a parallel institution working for them that wasn’t working for you, what use is legal or political thought? Just new violence and constant deceit. The state has also taken on too many enemies (Germany declared war on the USA even tho Japan wasn’t attacked)
Your examples stem from so-called "developments" in continental philosophy. Analytic political philosophy tends to be relatively timid, at least as far as humanities are allowed to these days.
Lol “analytic political philosophy” isn’t philosophy. It’s philosophy of science: social, meaning it’s empirical. It’s fully sponsored by bureaucracy and endorses the views of fallen Protestants. Germany also had these along with a large university system that’s been copied into American primary and secondary systems. It can’t and doesn’t exist in a neutral state, there is no vacuum unfilled. Much the like the regime of North Korea, institutions and their collapse are the domain of anthropology networks not ‘philosophy’; as ‘philosophy’ is what got you there - which is precisely the point.
If it came from continental philosophy, then Schmitt would be more applicable not less. You can’t ‘logic’ your way through an ecosystem that’s eradicated agency to the point it can’t even fix itself or continue without ‘becoming Hitler’ on both fronts. Analytically : If the reasoners themselves are prone to <either / or> being blind to the heresy that’s overtaken them +/- straight up agree with it, it’s likely boy a useful tool and most assuredly a proper lens that would aid the discovery process. Therefore you find one the one thats the best fit that undergraduates are forbidden to read, and was actually experienced by the author after publishing
> Anglo American philosophy is not as clear about analyzing itself when it goes wrong.
Could you provide some support for that? How did Schmitt analyze how he & the Nazi regime went wrong?
Richard is getting Schmitt’s work experiencing resurgence wrong. Firstly, it isn’t taught in college, but it probably should be. Secondly it’s not taught in college because it describes the left and reacting to the new status quo they have created - they think and behave this way so the right should too else society is finished. Hence the right should adopt the methods. This all started with the alt-right/ lite and coincided with Trump. JD Vance became aware of it too
I read Schmitt in graduate school. There’s an avant-left tradition of engaging with his work (see, for example, Giorgio Agamben), as well as hard-right thinkers in general (most notably Heidegger). Basically, the postmodern left is thirsty for critiques of liberal modernity, no matter their origins.
It took you til now to notice some on the left believe all those on the right are fundamentally the same, all racist, all fascist, all homophobic, all sexist? It's not just Ganz it's probably a third of the left thinks this way.
Exactly. More, I'd say... especially after the emergence of Trump. The idea is that Trump and his supporters are a unified bloc (even though they're not), and that compels them to unify... around some truly terrible positions and ideas.
Agreed. And vice versa. The pendulum is not dampening, it's swinging more wildly. Constructive wave interference, increasing spikes. Soon: kill all trans, versus make all kids trans. Collapse world economy shutting off oil, versus deregulation til we literally bathe in it. Utter Andrew-Tate woman hate, versus utter Andrea Dworkin man-hate.
> I don’t believe that race determines human worth, although I would say that IQ is one factor that goes into the calculation. Is this the definition of Nazism?
Worth noting that the actual Nazis were *opposed* to IQ research, since it showed Jews as superior.
A polite yet firm and decisive takedown. Touche
"That is not a value that Hanania holds, who openly and stridently believes that IQ and race determine human worth."
I thought this was funny when I saw it, because I recall you saying a while back that wealth (by contrast to IQ) is actually the most accurate determinant of a person's value. Obviously mentioning that here would scandalize Ganz even more, but he should at least get your weird idiosyncratic views right.
> Biden is not a queer studies professor.
And yet he cheered for the (mistaken) projection that whites will become a minority in the US in a couple of years, around 2015. Repeatedly, though other times are hard to google. What kind of brain damage does that take, to *cheer* for that?
I think that there is an asymmetry between the core and fringe on the right and the left. On the right the fringe is the fringe, hitching their wagons to the normal rightwingers, while sharing stupid memes and all that (btw I think you massively overestimate the representation of the statue/anime userpics among normal people because you follow a lot of them and not normal people on twitter). On the left the fringe is the core, they define the language, the allowed arguments and modes of arguing, the entire fundamentally corrupted structure of understanding reality.
For example, a racist might vote for a Republican governor that promises to stop racial quotas in college. If he then comes to said elected governor and asks to ban black people from attending college, he is in for a rude awakening: the normal rightwing ideas behind those normal rightwing policies, that racial discrimination is unfair and inefficient, are not normie versions of the more extreme far right desire to ban black people from college, they both directly contradict it.
Or maybe an antisemite applies to a software company in a fire-at-will state, then ask the CEO to fire all Jewish programmers. Again, while from his point of view fire-at-will is preferable to various minority protections, the reason normal rightwingers also support it is the exact opposite to his reason.
So while I wouldn't expect the average normal rightwinger to explain ideological foundations for his positions, using fancy words like "supererogatory duty" etc, at least he is obviously immune to whatever attempted ideological muggings from the extremist fringe.
Not so with leftwingers. You can see it especially clear when the dissonance becomes unbearable and they try to sanewash the ideological positions they received from the insane core of the movement, arguing that "defund the police" actually meant "fund more police training" for example. Men are oppressors but feminism is for everyone. You can't be racist against white people but of course it's prejudice and bad when some blacks torture a white teen for being white. There are literally hundreds of snappy slogans and loaded terms that are to be accepted as the scientifically accepted dogma, but when they collide with reality moderate libs can only appeal to common sense and say that those slogans don't actually mean what they mean.
btw, a related concept is "unprincipled exceptions". I feel safe in the assumption that allowing gay marriage won't lead to allowing child marriage, because to the principle "let them do whatever they want in their bedroom" a leftwinger has a principled exception: "children can't consent". It's not an ironclad guarantee but a pretty damn strong guardrail on the slippery slope. For many many other left-wing policies there's no such guardrails, people defending them can only appeal to "it's common sense that we won't want to slide any further" and "it's only a few insane people who ask for this now", all exceptions without a principle supporting them.
You write about Obama, "And yet he cheered for the (mistaken) projection that whites will become a minority in the US in a couple of years, around 2015. Repeatedly, though other times are hard to google. What kind of brain damage does that take, to *cheer* for that?"
I think, as usual, you people of the right, are hyperbolising (good for creative writing though) and he probably didn't actually "cheer", but maybe he mentioned that this is a possible outcome given the data about reproduction trends, and the problem for you and your fellow racists, was that he was not outraged and determined to do something about 'the problem'.
As you say sometimes it is hard to google and find the truth you want to find.
But I've thought about it and I can't see why would anyone would have a problem with blacks outnumbering whites..... unless you were a racist? Can you explain what you think would be so bad if this were to happen?
I suppose the native people of your country were so lacking in elite human capital that it was a good thing you whites with your high IQ's outnumbered them but if high IQ is the answer to all question and leads to the best of all possible worlds, I'm still wanting to understand how whites beat the Chinese because the Asians, they have higher IQ's. Right?
First of all, Biden, not Obama. He was outright cheerful about it on several other occasions but it's impossible to get through the debunkening spam saying that in one particular case he wasn't admitting to encouraging it, he just presented it as inevitable and said that it's a good thing because diversity is our strength, so checkmate conspiracists!
Second, it's not about blacks outnumbering whites, it's mostly Latinos. But also other types of foreigners.
Then the foremost of considerations is this: losing the political power of the majority sucks. I mean, all right, if everyone agreed to the 90s liberal dream of a raceblind utopia, I'd be on board. But tell me, is other racial and ethnic groups' self-identification increasing or decreasing as whites are becoming a minority? Are we getting closer or farther from MLK's dream of not seeing color *as far as blacks themselves* are concerned, or are they and other minorities (I'm thinking Muslims in particular) becoming more and more race/group-conscious, getting into the mindset of pursuing their group's goals against the rest of the society, and this increase of race consciousness is explicitly encouraged by the academia? Is "colorblind" not an insult these days, meaning racist-lite? We are factually moving *away* from the colorblind utopia and it's explicitly encouraged.
Do you know what happens when a numerical minority holds a disproportional political and economic power, and then the majority gets woke to it and is told that it's because the minority are oppressors? Tutsi in Rwanda, Jews in Germany (and everywhere to an extent)? Why on Earth would you want to become that minority? Jews learned their lesson and created Israel with an explicit purpose of "never again", do like Jews, they know shit.
Then there's a bunch of lesser arguments that you can easily see if you flip the question: if you like foreigners so much, why don't you move to a foreign country? The joys include: having to conform to foreign cultural norms, enjoying poverty caused by some of said cultural norms (or local IQ, who knows), having to learn a foreign language (probably in your advanced age, when it's very hard), and again them being racist towards you in all small and large respects.
OMG, yes, losing the political power of the majority does suck.
It's character building though. so stop whinging and suck it up.
But just in case elite human capital like you doesn't understand 'character', ... it is like this.....if you say that someone has character, you mean that they have the ability to deal effectively with difficult, unpleasant, or dangerous situations.
I'm not American thank doG and more and more we notAmericans think you people who voted for Trump really need more character and a lot of luck going forward.
Thanks for sharing your pain and anger. I hope it helps you get through the next few years.
There's another concept, "intelligence", which among other things involves not getting into difficult, unpleasant, or dangerous situations.
Yep so true, but nobody knows what intelligence is. Most people who study the concept agree that IQ does not equate to intelligence. Intelligence is a very good thing to have but it does not bestow the ability to make good choices. We can make better choices for sure but there are always unknowns.
And I think that character, whatever it is, is a part of intelligence that is not measured by IQ tests.
When we were poor and reliant on our government for welfare, not in Americia, and we couldn't afford something the kids badly 'needed', I would say, it's character building. They didn't appreciate that until they were grown up.
It's a probabilistic universe and random events create life.
The founders of the United States of Americia were very intelligent men and they differed in their ideas but came together to create something that has now been broken.
There is no united states, just an America that can never be great.
Sorry for your loss and I mean that.
That guy sounds like the standard mid-wit enslaved by his own confirmation bias. Come up with a theory/outlook/viewpoint of the world, then overfit (or over-generalize, as the case may be) every observation into said paradigm.
“Biden is not a queer studies professor.”
Right. But he did do some things that made him seem like he was under the influence of the ideology that emanates from these quarters. How did these bizarre ideas reach all the way up to the President? That is the “they” that bedevils the right.
He was senile, with his younger staffers running the show.
Even if that was literally true, why were his staffers pushing this agenda?
He hired a lot of people from the Warren campaign for some reason.
Ok, but that doesn’t explain why Warren staffers pushed a trans agenda. Why is it the “current year” for these elites?
Your original question was how those ideas reached their way to the President. I sought to explain that. Why those ideas were popular among Warren staffers is another story.
There seems to be a general scizo shift across all of politics the constituents of "they" vary a lot: WEF, Nazis, White supremacy, Zelensky
But there is an increase in politicians and journalists thinking their enemies are some indescribable shape shifting cabal.
I think the issue is the significant overlap of ideas/agendas that many on the Left share. The mistake of the rightoids is attributing it to a small cabal like, say, the CPUSA in the 1930s rather than multiple nodes of EHC/activists who share similar values. The various leaders of the Democrat Party could clamp down on, say, the trans craziness, but they can’t control the activists who spread this ideology. There is a degree to which EHC folks like Judith Butler, et al. influence the wider Left, who then épater les bourgeois Democrat, and this has the look of a cabal of sorts.
Many of the camps on the left: climate doomers, Corporate DEIers, Black identity politics activists, Muslim activists, Native American activists, Teachers unions etc literally hate each other and have no common beliefs apart from finding it easier to lobby Democrat politicians. Some actually want to kill each other.
Yes, that is all true but it’s also still true that among the Left (broadly speaking) there is some degree of value overlap, e.g., a member of DSA will dislike the Democrats but still support the meager welfare state benefits they dole out (pun intended), affirmative action, Net Zero by 2050 carbon pledges, anti-racism messaging, etc., etc. If there were not some overlap, there would be no point in speaking of the “Left”, e.g., teachers unions support DEI, etc. On the other hand, Hiram and Vernon Lewis claim that there really is no Left or Right, only various positions, and I am inclined in that direction.
I should add that in order for various PC or “left-wing” fads (e.g., trans, etc.) to gain mainstream support, these causes have to gain EHC support to some degree. How does that happen?
I'm about as straight down the center as you can get. Modestly left-leaning on some issues, more to the right on others. But I can tell the difference between the thoughtful and remarkably objective writing of Hanania and the unfiltered garbage spewed by many of the right, as well as lefties like Ganz.
At the end of the day, you and Trump want a world where people are not equal under the law, and are consigned to narrow fates because of inborn characteristics or the circumstances they were born into. I guess there are distinctions between you all, but who really cares when you’re all scum?
"It’s not just about Trump. This kind of lumping analysis is quite common on the right." This kind of lumping analysis happens everywhere! That's obviously true because you're describing a popular leftist thinker who does it! It would be trivially easy to come up with 1000 more.
Political belief is only secondarily about understanding reality or promoting policy. It's much more about us/them mentalities and in-group biases. This applies to EVERY ideology on the political spectrum. I think, in the age of Trump, one could make a decent argument that it's actually more prominent on the left now. How many leftists criticized BLM or feminism or trans rights during the past few years, and remained leftists? Conceptualizing you and your allies as a unitary bloc puts everyone else in a position of opposition, and many people take the next step and start to imply that all of the opposition is coordinated.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/scout-mindset
I think the bigger issue is that we're all wired to favor narratives over facts. And many of today's narratives run bizarrely counter to any facts.
"What we call “conservatism” and “liberalism” are massive coalitions" ... It seems to me that something about modern mass democratic politics -- especially with electronic media -- relentlessly presses people towards the "us/them" or the "they... they... they..." logic that Hanania rightly deplores.
I may not want to lump all my opponents into one big "them" (and may even recognize the internal differentiaions within "their" coalition) but every time I go into the ballot box, or prepare a post on social media, that is how "they" are made to appear.
I believe Ganz has argued that your racism is the thing that is offensive and aligned with Nazi pathos. That also seems to be the thing you ultimately can’t dance around, and makes all your efforts at communication seem like a dance rather than honesty. To admit that lower IQ scores shouldn’t diminish people’s dignity, is also just not serious. On an individual level, this is possible because you can take the whole person into account (you can also compare it with the deficits of the exam). On the level of a population, it immediately becomes insane. What are you going to say? ‘What they lack for in cognitive intelligence, they make up for in emotional expression, such as music and other forms of art, which can be viewed as another form of intelligence.’? I hope this gives you insight to how you are being received. And that is just to explain why your arguments are offensive. Since you clearly want your writing to be taken seriously not just as descriptions but as policy prescriptions, you should recognize better when people do just that. Ganz’ critique, that you disparage Nazi gestures in order to better promote Nazi policies, is spot on for that reason. It may not be comprehensive. You probably do believe the brutality of the Nazi regime and extreme cruelty was immoral, not just inconvenient but you argue for the racism central to the pathos. And that’s the problem with your writing, in trying to be comprehensive you fail to get to the point. This may better explain why people are angry at you, than that they are bitter or hateful in general.
To put a finer point on it, arguing for racism by trying to persuade people why it’s not actually bad, will appear absurd to most people, especially those you may wish to persuade the most. You should grapple with that, rather than respond to it from such a bewildered perspective.
Me thinks thou dost protest too much! Spending your time ripping on Ganz while propping up yourself as the good guy makes me believe you missed the entire point of Ganz's writing. He hates Nazis. Many on the right shown tolerance for Nazis. Many in high positions on the right show tolerance or embrace outright Nazi philosophy. Thus, based on history, there is a fear of Nazis being in power. Remember, if you are at a table with 7 Nazis, it is a table of 8 Nazis. Instead of criticizing him and defending yourself - criticize Nazis
> This kind of lumping analysis is quite common on the right. It’s a staple of Alex Jones’ view of the world, where he’ll talk about how elites want to make you live in tiny apartments and be forced to get dozens of vaccines to be able to walk outside, and then as evidence he will present quotes from a UN official, a Hollywood actress, and a CDC guidance memo.
I feel like I'm missing a part of the argument. Why is this supposed to be a mistake on Alex Jones' part? If the UN, the CDC, and Hollywood all agree that you should live in tiny apartments and get dozens of compulsory vaccines, that seems like better support for the idea "elites want to make you live in tiny apartments and get dozens of compulsory vaccines" than what appears to be the alternative you have in mind, that the case for "elites want to make you live in tiny apartments and get dozens of compulsory vaccines" should be supported by three Hollywood actresses and one Broadway actor. That second example wouldn't be an argument about what elites think; it would be an argument about what actors think.