Soldato
Yea, he says himself he is a classic British liberal.
Jordan Peterson thread
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Yea, he says himself he is a classic British liberal.
A literal Nazi these dayz fam
I get your point, but I think the nuance is important.
To me, 'cultural Marxist' is just lazy shorthand for something that is only tangentially related to actual Marxism.
It's far too easy to say "Marx pitted one group against another (the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie) and the current SJW movement is doing the same thing (whether that's third/fourth-wave feminists against men, or BLM against white people) etc", and then it's a short mental hop from Marx to the gulag.
Group A has been fighting Group B for millennia, Marx didn't invent identity politics and identity politics isn't exclusive to 'the left'. I mean, why call them cultural Marxists and not cultural Sieyès?
That's the thing though, the current state of modern identity politics isn't 'class struggle' in the traditional Marxist sense. If it were, most of these groups would be united in the cause against wage stagnation and wealth inequality (as you rightly point out). As it stands, the mess that is intersectionality pits the conflicting interests of different 'minority' groups against each other — it's completely counterproductive.
I have the same issue with the representation of postmodernism in the current narrative. In one of my first posts in the thread, I said that I didn't understand what JBP's problem was with the postmodernists. I've now come to realise that when he (and others) talks about postmodernism, they don't really mean the postmodernism of Foucault and Derrida. Rather, they are referring to a twisted interpretation of postmodernism that was developed in Social Science departments of American universities in the 1980s by people like Judith Butler.
This video does a great job of explaining where I'm coming from (although it is long). You can listen to the interview as a podcast as well if YouTube isn't your thing:
I think people:
- Perceive him to be against LGBT+ rights due to the C-16 thing
- Believe him to be strongly Christian
- See/hear him heavily criticise Socialism
- See him 'distroy' feminists in interviews
- Hear him criticise 'the left' relentlessly
Well yeah, they’re dumb. It’s a dubious fallacy to say assume if you’re criticising X you must believe Y when there are actually various alternatives. And/or if you believe A I’ll assume you also believe B, C & D because some other people I’ve encountered who believe A have those other beliefs... even though B, C & D have no relation to A.
The people in the video you linked to also end up getting arguments along those lines very frequently on twitter etc...
Soldato
Its really not that far away from Marxism though, i don't mean we'll suddenly see gulags popping up, that's pretty extreme, it's very very unlikely we'll ever go back there. But it looks like its manifesting itself in an updated modern version fit for the 21st century, with education camps, equality of outcome & hate for capitalism. Marx didn't invent identity politics, no, but the left seem to be the best at it, its no wonder they are called the regressive left. And regarding why they are called Marxists, i don't know tbh, my best guess is because its recent history, It's easier to attach yourself to that rather than something more distant. Vietnam was only 45 years ago for example, so even as Karl Marx had long been gone, his ideas were still being fought against.
I do think its a class struggle though, they just don't know it, and because they don't realise it themselves, as you quite rightly say, its intersectionality that has taken over, sporadic groups all fighting an internal battle for power for whichever cause they are going after.
I mean, on the one hand, it was quite amazing seeing the amount of people out to support BLM...there is serious wounds that need to be healed, the problem is they don't realise what that wound is. If there could be one serious face and message to represent the movement, not BLM, BLM will never gain traction because it doesn't include the hurting right wing. If you wanna get a proper movement started that would scare the elites, you need a message that incorporates everyone who is hurting from across the whole political spectrum.
OK, i'll check the video out.
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Well as soon as anyone starts criticising capitalism, the immediate retort is to call them a marxist, you can't tell someone something they don't want to hear.
Either way, have you actually ever read Das Kapital? It certainly isn't complete nonsense, just like how The Wealth of Nations isn't complete gospel. The reason Capitalism is falling to pieces is not due to a lack of belief.
Either way, have you actually ever read Das Kapital? It certainly isn't complete nonsense, just like how The Wealth of Nations isn't complete gospel. The reason Capitalism is falling to pieces is not due to a lack of belief.
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What's that got to do with my point?
I edited my post to clarify. I was picking up something earlier on the page not 100% related to your post. This group criticise capitalism.
Soldato
Not recently no, i had to read it for A levels.
But there is a reason why throughout history, a capitalist driven economy has create the greatest wealth for people, no system is perfect, and no system and no one person has been able to the solve the Pareto Principle. It doesn't matter whether its socialism, capitalism, communism, native american tribal, they all have the same problem with the haves and have not. Humans are incredible diverse with what they can provide society, there is a biological hierarchy encoded in us. And its going stay that way. We have it with private education, people who have made money for themselves are more likely to send their children to private education. The next thing will be chips wired into our brains to make us more intelligent and efficient, Elon Must is working on that currently, and it won't be cheap, so again, it'll be wealthy people that get it first. But as we know with capitalism, revolutionary products become cheaper and cheaper (phones/computers), the people at the bottom get to see the benefits. That doesn't happen in a system which isn't self serving to some degree unfortunately..
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Who said anything about eliminating wealth inequality? The whole issue surrounds an unbalanced share of the growth in wealth. Why is it that in the aftermath of Roosevelt's new deal when the share of growth was (mostly) equitable that the so-called golden age of capitalism occurred? I don't think it's merely a correlation.
The current obscenity that we have today where the state has to involve itself so much to keep this inequitable growth going is unsustainable, it has nothing to do with Marx and continuing to ignore it will end in bloodied streets.
Soldato
What? Wealth inequality and a balanced share in the growth of wealth is exactly the same thing. If there was a balanced share in the growth, then inequality would not been widening over the last 40 years.
As for the rest of the post, you need to remember the world wars that had just happened, that created a supply issue for labour which drove wages up, that's essentially why we had the roaring 50's and 60's, massive growth out of an economic depression, the creation of a massive middleclass due to having power compared to the employer, workers therefore had a far more equitable share in growth. We don't have that at the moment, in a globalised world, labour isn't an issue.
I agree about the state involving itself too much, im very much in favour of getting away from market interventionism, at least capitalism would be allowed to properly flourish, companies would know they dont have a backstop with a central bank willing to print money..
That didn't happen previously, CB's doing that is extremely modern, like the last 40 years, its MMT theory.
I'm sure globalisation isn't the golden goose it was meant to be, but surely increasing demand would mean increasing supply? More consumers with the means to purchase products is hardly a bad thing.
Soldato
Well if we debating the issue of the haves and have nots, like i said previously, no one has managed to solve it, and it certainly won't be me, i don't have a clue at the end of the day. You change one thing and it has tens if not hundreds of unintended consequences.
But less state involvement would certainly give us better raw data about what works and what doesn't.
Absolutely, but the majority of people aren't going to take the time to find out what person X believes about a range of subjects before coming to an accurate conclusion. Especially if they know one thing about them (eg the C-16 issue) and that one thing doesn't align with their own beliefs.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying I agree with it, but I believe it's a suitable explanation for the issue @Nitefly raised.
I think the insinuation from JBP is that we will end up with gulags and millions of deaths if we carry on down this path. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, here's a quote from the man himself:
JBP said:
Maybe I'm projecting, but that seems pretty clear to me. I actually agree with him that group identity is wrong, I just think it's a huge leap from BLM to 6 million deaths.
And while some of the BLM organisers may be 'trained Marxists' (whatever that means) as-per @Stu999's video, I don't think the majority of BLM protests hate capitalism. They don't want to eradicate capitalism, they want more of an equitable stake in the current system.
Yes, that's a fair point.
Yes, I think we're essentially saying the same thing — it should be a class struggle, but these disparate groups are distracting each other from the bigger issue(s). They basically can't see the wood for the trees.
Agreed. I think the original Occupy movement could have turned into this, but for whatever reason, it fizzled out.
I agree Tom, but when is it ever the average person in a group that decides what happens? If the organisers/leaders of BLM are Marxists, then that's the path that group will follow.
That's true up to a point, but if the leadership starts taking a direction that the wider group is opposed to, the strength of the movement will quickly fall.
If the leaders suddenly start talking about establishing a socialist utopia, rather than an equitable stake in the current system, they're going to alienate a lot of their current base — not least because the movement has a lot of support from big business and celebrities/wealthy individuals.
BLM isn't a movement that's going to topple capitalism, even if the leaders are 'trained Marxists'.
Soldato
JBP is weird character, he self confesses to thinking for hours about being a Nazi prison guard, and what he would have done. Since he's thought about what people would do when under the pressure of a hierarchy and indoctrinated to believe certain people are enemies, then i suppose its natural that he believes people can descend into chaos rather easily. Given the right conditions, an example might be BLM protestors in this CHAZ zone having ultimate power, engaging with people that don't buy into the BLM ideology, suddenly there is dynamic there that can turn really vicious very quickly. You scale that up, instead of 1 CHAZ zone compromised of say 100 people, you have 10 CHAZ zones in every city with a couple hundred people in each CHAZ zone. That would could turn very violent with a lot of innocent people dying rather quickly.
Yea, it was a little bit before my time, like it happened at a time when i wasn't that interested in politics and stuff. I was at Uni at the time doing a sports degree. But looking back, it could have had significant impact if it had a single face for the movement.
If you've never seen Peter Schiff debate with Occupy protestors, well worth a watch...
That’s a fair point.
My question would be, is/was CHAZ/CHOP representative of a BLM-led society or was it a bunch of chancers taking advantage of an unusual situation? Maybe it doesn’t matter if the end result is the same…
Ah, now I see why it fizzled out.
To be honest, I gave up after 10 minutes when he said that in the 1950s, America had the highest living standards because the government kept out of the way back then.
Does the quality of the debate (from both sides) get any better?
Also, I’d just like to point out that I’m not a Marxist or a Socialist — you’d be forgiven for assuming that based on my posts in this thread.
Just as liberal democracy is the worst form of government apart from all the others, I see capitalism as the worst economic model, apart from all the others. I don’t believe in a completely laissez-faire free market but I do advocate ‘capitalism with a conscience’.
Commissario
That’s a fair point.
My question would be, is/was CHAZ/CHOP representative of a BLM-led society or was it a bunch of chancers taking advantage of an unusual situation? Maybe it doesn’t matter if the end result is the same…
Ah, now I see why it fizzled out.
To be honest, I gave up after 10 minutes when he said that in the 1950s, America had the highest living standards because the government kept out of the way back then.
Does the quality of the debate (from both sides) get any better?
Also, I’d just like to point out that I’m not a Marxist or a Socialist — you’d be forgiven for assuming that based on my posts in this thread.
Just as liberal democracy is the worst form of government apart from all the others, I see capitalism as the worst economic model, apart from all the others. I don’t believe in a completely laissez-faire free market but I do advocate ‘capitalism with a conscience’.
That's interesting, IIRC in 1950 the US top rate of tax was something like 90%, the government was offering free/very heavily subsidised education/training, healthcare and low interest loans to the servicemen who fought in WW2 (and their families), almost like the government actively helping a large part of the population improve themselves whilst taxing the rich properly worked and led to an increase in living standards pretty much across the board.
I'm sure that's not the point he's trying to make though.
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