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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32319 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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The skin color of the leadership seems pretty important to SA.

And yet somehow less important than whether the leadership are a bunch of Marxists.

Necessary but not guaranteed

Nothing outside death gravity and taxes is ever guaranteed, and even taxes leave a fair bit of wiggle room.

Human society being complex is hardly a novel idea, nor something with any real explanatory power.

Above you said:

Imagine looking at the state of South Africa and thinking 'what this country really needs is more brain drain, capital flight, international isolation, and even more intense ethnic conflict.'

This statement makes little sense. No on is in favor of that for them (although, I think full evacuation of the white population is probably best for them long term). It is that the majority is ungovernable without large amounts of repression by a population that is distinct from the majority in many ways. I don't think these rulers and managers and train runners have to be white, simply I don't think there are enough people in the native black population to staff all those roles competently and with the disposition to do so with enough of an iron fist to run the country.

Unclear. Is it because the leadership are Marxists that they don't have the state capacity to prevent rampant pillaging of powerlines? There have been Marxist societies - Stalinist Russia, or Mao's China, or Kim's Korea - that were capable of protecting state infrastructure and harshly punishing those who, without approval from the relevant political authorities, harmed it.

Is it because the leadership of SA are Marxists that they have a turbo-charged affirmative action system (called "Black Economic Empowerment") which crippled many major businesses and state enterprises? It's more LBJ "Great Society" than "all power to the proletariat."

Is the SA leadership's Marxism the reason that they appear to be functionally innumerate?

I don't know, and I have a hard time believing it's not a larger issue, of which culture/ideology is one aspect.

that were capable of protecting state infrastructure and harshly punishing those who, without approval from the relevant political authorities, harmed it.

So there was this one time I was at work, and a friend of mine arrives extremely late. No biggie, we're all IT dudes, and there was nothing urgent, but it was unlike him, so we ask him what happened, and he says: "well, here I was, sitting on the bench at the station, waiting for my usual train when I hear the announcement 'due to theft of the overhead power lines, all trains in the direction of <<city>> are cancelled'". It was already after communism though, so maybe it's beside your point.

Is it because the leadership of SA are Marxists that they have a turbo-charged affirmative action system (called "Black Economic Empowerment") which crippled many major businesses and state enterprises? It's more LBJ "Great Society" than "all power to the proletariat."

That's the same "Cultural Marxism does not exist / isn't Marxism" cope all the Marxists always use. The answer here is yes. Marxist oppressor-opressed analysis is what's responsible for affirmative action.

Is the SA leadership's Marxism the reason that they appear to be functionally innumerate?

That one might come down to post-modernism.

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