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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31623 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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More to the point, yours is an understandable perspective; but one should note that contemporary leftist spirit is the opposite of Faustian. Barring unorthodox voices like Yglesias and Klein with their «supply-side progressivism» (presented as a novel vision and not a rebranding of common-sensical Modernist philosophy that follows from basic Enlightenment), current leftism is characterized by deep suspicion about technological solutions and by the expectation of dystopian scenarios that almost unites them with the trad far right, lack of commitment to specific conditional predictions – we know for certain what spells doom, but not what may positively suffice to avert it, short of doom with extra steps – and by utter reliance on zero-sum redistributive approaches. The best they can offer «underrepresented minorities» is more pablum about school funding, antiracist brainwashing and affirmative action. They scoff at AI and actively suppress genetic technology. They just want status quo with a revised gibs ratio. Self-professed Faustians like Musk freak them out.

This might be true of your average Democrat politician or shitlib bluecheck, but have you read any of the stuff the World Economic Forum is putting out? Or UNESCO? Say whatever you will about it - and I have endless negative things to say about it myself - but this is a group of people with an intense Will to Power and an unshakeable belief that they have the power to fundamentally transform humanity. They seem to have a boundless confidence in the power of technologies - both mechanical and social - to rewrite the bounds of what we consider possible. It is ultra-Faustian - here, some would helpfully remind us that Faust is, in fact, the victim of a demon, offering us a self-serving temptation which will lead us to ruin, and not in fact a role model to be emulated - and I completely understand why it appeals to so many capable and intelligent white people. It’s downright Promethean. The strain of European man who looks at every supposed limit or guardrail as an engineering problem to be overcome has a lot to be inspired by in the writings of the WEF, which is itself a recapitulation of the Hermetic mythos which has inspired so many generations of hyper-intelligent European aristocrats and autodidacts over the course of millennia.

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