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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34967 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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I would argue that whether or not anyone identifies with that term anymore is irrelevant because my post is not about what people like Curtis Yarvin, Richard Spencer, or Steve Sailer might identify as. It is about who they are, where they are from, and what positions they hold.

They can adopt the superficial trappings of belief in an absolute monarch, but that doesn't make them believers.

See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. ”I know what you really believe. You might think you believe something, but I know better than you what you believe. I see into your heart of hearts.” Okay, Hlynka, please tell us explicitly in what sense Steve Sailer believes in Hegelian oppressor/oppressed dynamics. (Aren’t you the one who once stated, with zero evidence, that Steve Sailer is a Hillary Clinton shill? What was the last Steve Sailer essay or tweet you read?) Please also explain what, specifically, unites Steve Sailer and Curtis Yarvin politically; what particular policy positions would they both advocate for?

By contesting the claim that it was conducted "Happily" or that it was the "largest and most sophisticated", slavery had been the norm/default for pretty much all of recorded history and I don't think it's a coincidence that abolitionism didn't gain traction until when and where it did.

We are talking about a vast commercial enterprise spanning entire oceans and transporting over ten million people. Yes, obviously slavery was the norm in human history, and I don’t want to shortchange the very impressive slave-trading prowess of the Ottomans, the Vikings, the Romans, or the Barbary pirates, but they just don’t hold a candle in terms of raw numbers and sheer scale, both geographically and in terms of wealth transferred. Yes, the British Empire was instrumental in ending slavery, but it only did so after being an enthusiastic participant in that same slave trade for centuries before that. It’s all the same civilization! If “being anti-slavery” is a characteristic of Western civilization, then Western civilization began about 1800 years after you claimed it began.

Okay, Hlynka, please tell us explicitly in what sense Steve Sailer believes in Hegelian oppressor/oppressed dynamics.

He cannot and he will not; this is less charitable than I typically am, but from his treatises on this topic I get the sense that he hopes by force of repetition alone to cement a tendentious and sweeping thesis of why everyone who disagrees with him is aligned, no matter the level and incontrovertibility of evidence provided to the contrary. You are not wrong to correct him, but you will get nowhere in doing so.

I'm not claiming that they are aligned, I am claiming that they are of a type, and that the type is specific. The Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks might have been bitter enemies, but no one who hadn't already picked a side in that specific fight would try to claim that weren't both "communist".

I am characterizing the whole Id-Pol framework the same way, and for all the accusations of uncharity and attestations that "Our identity politics is different from their identity politics." I have yet see anyone here really grapple with that issue. Why should I, as someone who thinks identity politics is a load of bullshit cooked up by Berkley Marxists, believe in identity politics or treat the different varieties there-of as anything less than equal?

It's not about what one believes, it's about what one is. To continue the trans analogy, you are free to believe that you are a woman but others are just as free to believe that the presence of a cock is proof otherwise.

Beyond that, I feel like @FCfromSSC has already addressed your claims better than I could. What makes you think "class" or "race" are even valid concepts to begin with? What makes you think that that anyone can (or ought to be) judged by anything other than their behavior? As I recall I didn't accuse Steve Sailer being Clinton shill with zero evidence. I accused him of being a tool of the Democrats/Media Establishment because he had chosen to join David French, Jennifer Rubin, various other "Never Trump" figures at the National Review in endorsing Clinton over Trump back in 2016.

It's one thing to abstain/recuse oneself from a scenario where you see no good outcome, it's another to actively aid the opposition...

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