17 Comments

This is some high-octane NRx post-modernism.

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It's a small niche but it's too fun to write to stop

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Miss you already, man. Not sure how to share an email address on here that isn’t available to God and everybody. Incredible post.

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You can email me at evilpolisci@protonmail.com. Always happy to chat friend (and hopefully my Twitter is back soon enough to make it easier)

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You used to not be allowed to talk shit about troons because they were in charge. Now that it’s Indians running twitter… you know how it goes. Try to appeal anyway.

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Interesting paradox on how labels can be judged. You can be called a genocide supporter for crimes against humanity on Twitter for having a different perspective or viewpoint, with the accuser suffering no repercussions. Yet one off the cuff snark gets ES banned for life. Clown World.

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I'm temp banned and about a month into what I assume is a completely non-functional appeal process. Touching grass has been fun.

Also, I mostly skimmed, so forgive me if this was already covered, but aren't we all the 5'1" Guatemalan, barking loudly on Twitter and Substack because our day-jobs at the abstract widget factory has close to zero real meaning or value? "My big brain could beat up your big brain" is exactly the sentiment that 3000 words on Substack for exactly $0.00 seems to reek of. I certainly enjoy my hobby as blogger Neo, it really is just like a videogame, but in theory there's a linebacker in academia or somewhere in government that could get their entire hand around my neck.

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My Guatemalan analogy is about presentation of the self-- he presents himself a certain way in real life that is incongruous with reality, but for his identity requires that this fantasy be validated by others for his psychic stability. Real-person accounts on Twitter can be inferred as such based on the presentation of the real person associated with the account and their validation-seeking behavior. Anon accounts, like ours, are different because these are not associated with our real selves, and their presentations, in the same way; for all the people aggrieved with my Twitter post know, I'm actually a high school dropout truck driver and not a PhD (and the uncertainty surrounding this frustrates them-- it would be so much easier to them if they could condescend a truck driver, even if that hypothetical person is more successful on any measurable dimension). We are role-playing Neo here but we know it's fantasy, not part of our waking, walking lives; the real fantasies are the ones we don't or can't recognize as such. We are watching The Matrix and know it's a movie (or, hopefully we do, as there are exceptions), which is much less deluded than confusing the movie for reality. Cue obligatory Lacan, "the madman is not only a beggar who thinks he is a king, but also a king who thinks he is a king."

And I wouldn't give too much credit to the big-brained academics and bureaucrats. Sure, it would be delusional for us to think we understand the mathematics of nuclear physics better than the nuclear physicists (unless you are one too, idk), but these domains of genuine expertise are narrower than most realize, the scientists included. When it comes to social, moral, political issues particularly, there is no ranking of expertise, and your ideas stand on their merits-- factuality, logic, ingenuity, etc.-- alone.

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Enjoy your time off.

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You’re greatly missed already, but I like to think you’ll be back.

Liberalism is on an interesting path of sleepwalking into totalitarianism in part as a consequence of its self-perception as a system that could never be totalitarian. Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance is one of the columns that supports this bridge towards the total state that they’re building.

Popper’s paradox gets some flak but the thing is, it’s not an unreasonable claim, insofar as any system has to—in order to survive—exclude to some extent the rival ideologies that would destroy it. However, his paradox only really functions under a sane definition of what tolerance means: “I’m not going to kill or inflict violence on those who aren’t like me/disagree” is a sensible understanding of tolerance; a fast-food chain morally disapproving of gay marriage is an entirely different thing that is neither intolerant nor even bigoted in any meaningful way. But progressives and liberals believe such people and attitudes have to be stamped out in the name of tolerance, which is a critical failure that will turn Popper’s sincere liberalism into a machine for totalitarianism.

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Good point-- social realities are emergent properties of our actions as humans and hence evolve beneath our feet as we adapt to them in a continual, iterative process. Totalitarianism, for instance, became acephalous preciously because we believed the charismatic leader to be its most important attribute. The State hid its true nature to the humans whose actions generated it as a survival mechanism. Same goes, as you say, with Liberalism. The totalitarian ideologies that follow as a consequence of the State's internal logic clocked itself in the language of its opposite to conceal itself from the average people who confuse labels for the underlying reality. We might say this autonomous obfuscation process is one of the defining characteristics of our postmodern world.

And agreed on Popper, too. Civilizations tend to collapse when their founding principles, which once served them well, are carried to logical extremes that introduce contradictions into the system. An example is a Liberal immigration policy that causes the liberal society to be saturated with illiberal inhabitants that subvert liberalism. We might generalize Popper's sentiment to prohibit implications of an ideology that lead to contradiction. Our ideologies, beliefs, social organizations are not governed by the laws of logic and so it's doubtful we can ever create them without contradictory implications built in. We'd do better with some recognition of this.

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I had to Google the word "acephalous", but these are all great insights Evil Political Scientist.

I like to say a very concise aphorism:

"Yesterday's solutions are often the cause of today's problems."

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Very intelligent analysis

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Glad you're back

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Thanks friend, glad to be back (although that's going to put a dent in these substack posts)

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C'est la vie

Unlike these Woke patronage schemes, we autodidacts are not getting paid to pump out ideological content. Our content is more passionate and intelligent as a result.

But for me, this has always been about retaining my sanity, and self-expression. The performative aspect is secondary. But we are surrounded by so many lies and ritual humiliations, it's a relief to find someplace where we can privately remember truth.

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January 16, 2023
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Almost there, it looks like my suspension will be lifted on Saturday -- they couldn't lock me out too long. Very cool to hear you read Collision of Wills. It's one of the few excellent works to come out of sociology's dead decades

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