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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38486 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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I'm still working on reading through the whole manifesto (has anyone else on this thread actually read the whole thing?), but I just found a paragraph that changes my views a bit (bolding is my own, but the whole paragraph is lifted from the manifesto unchanged):

P96. As for our constitutional rights, consider for example that of freedom of the press. We certainly don’t mean to knock that right; it is very important tool for limiting concentration of political power and for keeping those who do have political power in line by publicly exposing any misbehavior on their part. But freedom of the press is of very little use to the average citizen as an individual. The mass media are mostly under the control of large organizations that are integrated into the system. Anyone who has a little money can have something printed, or can distribute it on the Internet or in some such way, but what he has to say will be swamped by the vast volume of material put out by the media, hence it will have no practical effect. To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us (FC) for example. If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted. If they had been been accepted and published, they probably would not have attracted many readers, because it’s more fun to watch the entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even if these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the mass of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we’ve had to kill people.

Ah, so the internet did exist at the time, though not as a society-dominating force, and he decided to do violence because he thought he wasn't getting enough attention. Yeah that's a hard no from me. You don't get to do violence because nobody cares about your viewpoint. If he worked as hard at improving his communication and spreading his views though normal methods as he did at bombing random people and evading law enforcement, he probably would have had a lot more influence. Instead, he did what he did and he got exactly what he deserved.

Honestly, the more I read the less I care for his overall viewpoint. I'm starting to think I could do an effortpost going against his actual viewpoint.

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