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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29551 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024

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But for someone who has read as much about history as I have, the hardcore lockstep groupthink of the modern left is very concerning. It raises alarm bells in that it is reminiscent of totalitarian leftist movements from history.

I feel you.

I find it interesting that the entire alt-right, the whole ecosystem ranging from 2016 Trumpist meme populism to hardcore 4chan /pol/ white supremacy, is both notably leftist in some key aspects of its psychology, and also clearly more committed to the fight and in many ways better at fighting it than mainstream right-wingers are. I say leftist because the alt-right, in their populist economics, their sense that they are oppressed by shadowy elites, their obsession with race and sex and the cultural meanings of both, is very reminiscent of a leftist movement.

The alt-right is basically "rightism for angry, rebellious young men", as opposed to "rightism for boring normies", and what you're seeing is similarities to "leftism for angry, rebellious young men" which was how the counterculture got started. RfARYM isn't new; it just was a taboo area of politics in the West for 70 years because the last big Western proponent was named Adolf Hitler (note that Nazism hit all three of the points you mention). I suspect part of the reason RfARYM has started being a thing again is because SJ threw the word "Nazi" around so much and so lightly that the taboo got worn down to merely being "edgy".

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