>Social media and the internet have given the right to talk to legionaries of imbeciles who first talked only at the bar after a glass of wine without harming the community. They were immediately silenced, while they now have the same right to speak of a Nobel Prize. It's the invasion of the imbeciles.
When were you when Eco predicted the /pol/ phenomenon?
Other urls found in this thread:
twitter.com
twitter.com
I was independently coming to observe the same thing he observed.
>Legionaries
*Legions
It only goes to show that the academic!left despises it wishes to "emancipate". Because of that and the manner in which academic institutions reenforce our class structure, anti-inellectualism is almost always justified.
*teleports behind you*
>"such haughtiness in relation to the mass ... is a typically massive behavior .. whoever speaks of the general intellectual powdery should know that he is not immune, must take it on himself as a risk and destiny common of men ".
Here's the problem, though: there is absolutely zero reason to believe that the rule of the un-intellectual would be better than the rule of the intellectual. I suspect it would be much worse.
The funny thing is, if aliens suddenly tried to invade the Earth, all this political bullshit would immediately be shelved and we'd all unite against the common enemy. What does that say about what's going on?
nothing personnel, kid
While you're likely correct, why should most people support or trust a group that openly holds them in contempt and who benefits institutions detrimental to them.
>Here's the problem, though: there is absolutely zero reason to believe that the rule of the un-intellectual would be better than the rule of the intellectual.
Trump presidency has been pretty great so far
Mass media whines about internet because they don't have any longer the monopoly of news and opinion.
Tradiotional media is a one direction way of sharing information: this is the reality, this is what you have to believe. You can't discuss it with me.
Internet allows discussion, open debates, free speech, arguments, contrasting sources, etc. That's why they are so afraid of the internet and talk about how professional they are, the post-truth.
The era of information can lead us into socialism. That's why they shook.
Trump is Ivy League educated. He's the inevitable result of the symbiotic relationship between intellectual institutions the the American upper class.
Not an argument.
Just because x seems less serious when y appears, assuming y is of greater value or urgency, doesn't mean that somehow x is valueless.
If I have stage 2 cancer, I'd be pretty fucking worried. But if I get into a car accident after my diagnosis, I'd probably worry about the car accident for a while and forget about the diagnosis. That doesn't somehow discount the importance of the cancer diagnosis.
This applies to a large majority of Veeky Forums
it allows all those things, fine. but does it encourage them? or does it rather encourage groupthink on unprecedented scales?
Obviously.
Precisely because of the logic that I have advanced: it is far better to support a group that holds you in contempt than it is to support groups that wouldn't hold you in contempt, perhaps, but would objectively make society worse. Also keep in mind that when giving more power to the un-intellectual, one risks opening the doors to populist militancy. We've seen, historically, what populist militancy does: murder people and ruin the nation.
The flaw in populist thinking is that you imagine that you are on the side of the good guys, and all you have to do is beat the bad guys. Now, first of all, you might be wrong about being one of the good guys. But even, let's say, you are right. You are one of the good guys. So all you have to do is beat the bad guys and... live happily ever after? No! When you push the bad guys back, all of a sudden there will be a power vacuum. And all sorts of "good guys" and "bad guys" will rush into that vacuum, and you will have to fight them in order to actually get power. Then what happens is that the most vicious group has, precisely by virtue of being the most vicious group, an advantage. And then everyone except that group is fucked.
No thanks.
>I suspect it would be much worse.
That's why I can't wait for you soys to really get what you want. Honestly can't wait for Eurabia 2060, and a Latino America in 2060. It's going to be great ramming your own norms, laws, and ambitions down your throats when you realize what you've created.
>wah wah people don't give me priority in discussion just because I spent an autistic amount of time reading boring medieval books in latin
OP, you go wrong in calling /pol/ and places like it a "phenomenon". It's completely insignificant, as much as bar discussions are.
Internet is a tool. How people use it is not on me or you, it's on each of them/us. I can't take any responsability for what others do. If they want to use it to reinforce their positions instead of learning, that's not my fault.
I think that's because the system as a whole has been stable enough to ignore the crazier stuff he would do if he had his way. The checks and balances are working.
>but would objectively make society worse
Most of the leading cadres in the Khmer Rouge brought their ideas back from French universities. Some of the worst murderous regimes in human history have come from ideas that arose from intellectuals. If you are going to use the "populism is bad because they murder and ruin things", then you can say the same thing about intellectuals.
The problem with this thread is that Veeky Forums idolizes intellectuals and academics. They see themselves as little academics, so any attack on academia is an attack on their selves. There is no constructive conversation here, because Veeky Forums (usually left wing or liberal) posters can't be honest about the past and current state of intellectuals.
I don't want Eurabia or Latino America, but I also don't want populism (left or right). My aim is to defeat both dangers. I view the threat level of the two as being about equal.
*towers loftily above you*
An Aryan mind has too much respect for other people, and its sense of its own dignity is too pronounced to allow it to impose its own ideas upon others, even when it knows that its ideas are correct.
Yes, populist movements are usually led by intellectuals. But I am not advocating for populist movements led by intellectuals. I'm advocating for what we have now in the West: a sort of republic-oligarchy, with multiple separate and somewhat competing centers of power, and populism as a relatively weak force.
>The problem with this thread is that Veeky Forums idolizes intellectuals and academics. They see themselves as little academics, so any attack on academia is an attack on their selves. There is no constructive conversation here, because Veeky Forums (usually left wing or liberal) posters can't be honest about the past and current state of intellectuals.
This is an absurdly inaccurate view of Veeky Forums. People like you see leftists under every bush. The reason is simple: you need to see leftists everywhere because they are your reason for being, the antipode which allows your own political cultist mythology (which has a lot in common with the leftist mythology) to have a Manichean opposite. In reality leftists are criticized all the time here. People like you think that the presence of any criticism of your ideas at all means that a board is full of leftists. That's just paranoia.
>believeing this
He can barely be called a president.
You need to re-assess your threat level, because it is delusional. It's not equal, it's asymmetric. The far right aren't a threat. It's blown out of proportion by the media. They don't have the monetary backing like the other groups (most Salafists in Europe are backed by Gulf Oil money), they don't have the cultural power to project into groups that aren't them (the only people reading breitbart and watching fox are right wingers), they don't have the same level of competency and organization of the groups (look at "alt-right" IRL protests compared to the left, it's nothing in scale or sophistication), and lastly go browse /pol/. Most rightists -- especially those in leadership positions -- are morons. The same can't be said about dangerous non-rightists who often smart, cunning, and devious.
Maybe they aren't a threat now, but I'm looking at a time frame of the next 30-50 years. Here's the thing: Eurabia and Latino America aren't a threat now either. They're a threat on a time frame of the next 30-50 years. So it's the same in both cases.
Alberto was such a fucking pretentious idiot.
You do realize that the cunning and devious people have much more to win from lower taxes, climate change denial, eliminating net neutrality and other such rightist ideas, right?
>b-but all the big corporations funded Hillary's campaign
There's no such thing as an American left. All it does is distract people from the real issues by making a fuss about transgender rights and such.
It's not the same in both cases, I've just outlined to why you they aren't. Responding to the claim that "groups current(M) and current(N) are not the same threat" with, "but future(M) and future(N) will be an equal threat" is absurd given an extrapolation from the current state of financing, cultural power, organizational competency, and leadership. You've given no indication as to how future(M) is equal to future(N) given such a scenario, just merely stated tautologically, "they're a threat, because they're a threat".
You're saying that the current level of right-wing populism is very little threat. I claim that the current level of leftism is very little threat. As for non-whites, while they do contribute to a lot of crime, crime in the US is is almost down to 1950s levels. I consider right-wing populism to be a large enough potential future threat to not wish to try to address the racial situation with their assistance. It's too risky. Right-wing populism should be kept in a little cage. So should the left-wing version, but it is toothless right now (that could change). The immigration situation must be addressed using liberal politics.
Since when are the far right into lower taxes (large amounts are natsocs), climate change denial (large amounts are green-tier eco-fascists), and eliminating net neutrality (/pol/ regularly has threads about this)?
You're confusing neocons and neoliberals with the far right like you've just waltzed in from reddit, which is hilarious because you're an eliminativist about the American left.
>I claim that the current level of leftism is very little threat.
Wow, you claim something. Interesting. I'm really into claiming things as well, especially re-stating things. I like to substitute them for argument, which clearly you are into as well.
>a large enough potential future threat
Without an assessment of their financing, cultural power, organizational competency, leadership, and other dimensions. That's what a threat analysis does.
>toothless
They literally have the paper of record (the NYT) looking out for them. They are embedded in academia and the non-right media. All these things aren't toothless, they are kind of ideological and cultural weapon to manipulate not just specific groups but non-aligned people as well. The exact opposite of toothless. You aren't being honest with your threat analysis. They also manage to organize aspects of the various riots in the last year. Turning one city into a near warzone. That's not toothless. You are being dishonest.
>The immigration situation must be addressed using liberal politics.
The same liberal politics that uses Salafist Islam as a cat's paw to overthrow countries since the 80s? The same that is pro mass immigration and currently pro identity politics turning such groups into a votebank that apparently you are against? That liberalism?
Yeah, well, perhaps you shouldn't have politicized the academies. Besides, this is all on schedule. And on order.
They... they... they... you're implying that there's some centrally coordinated "left" that's doing all these horrible things. I don't see any reason to believe that.
However, I should say that I view populism to be so extremely dangerous that even if I literally believed that there was a unified scheme such as you describe, I would still probably side against populism.
I'm ethnically Russian. I know what populism can do.
Let's look at your threat analysis in some detail. You claim:
1) The Gulf backs Salafi immigration to Europe.
2) The far right doesn't have cultural power to project.
3) The far right are stupid.
Regarding #1: If it's happening, it's nothing that can't be handled within a liberal framework. Populism is unnecessary.
Regarding #2: White identity politics has awoken as a response to weakening white relative power on the world stage. This means that right-wing populism will probably continue to be relevant on the political scene, unfortunately, since right-wing populism is the big pit into which those who are sensitive to the weakened position of whites, but are retarded, fall.
Regarding #3: So were almost all of the chief Nazis. So were almost all of the chief Bolsheviks.
>I'm ethnically Russian. I know what populism can do.
Ah yes, the Russians whose Russian revolution was led by vanguardists, then went straight to a totalitarian party system. When this collapsed was taken over by bankers, oil men, and a KGB strongman. Lots of populism there. Sounds more like the oligarchy you love, guess you really are Russian.
>Regarding #1:
The western liberal establishment is in bed with the Saudis, and it is overtly obvious that the intelligence community are in bed with the Salafist extremists and have been since the 1980s in Afghanistan. There is nothing happening in a liberal framework there, because liberals will protect both the Saudis and the Salafist extremists. The elites within Europe also seem to be ok with Gulf Oil money and with mass immigration from both North Africa and the Middle East.
>Regarding #2: White identity politics has awoken ...
None of this is a measure of power. Populism is built off leadership, cultural/ideological power to sway large groups, financing, and organizational capabilities. Merely being "woke" as a causal factor is not enough (especially with the trend of liberals and progressives calling for shutting down thought on certain social media sites), and again if you put in a comparative framework doesn't mean jackshit compared to those that have the above dimensions in spades.
>Regarding #3: So were almost all of the chief Nazis. So were almost all of the chief Bolsheviks.
lol, you couldn't be more ignorant. Go read the historian Richard Overy's Why the Allies Won. Both the NSDAP and the Bolsheviks were highly competent. Contra to liberal history, they came very close to toppling the allies, which if you were an actual liberal might take seriously as threat (but since you suck at threat analysis, I doubt it).
>they came very close to toppling the allies
*By they here, I mean nazis.
Populism allowed the Bolsheviks to topple the Provisional government. Like I explained here: , part of the danger is that populism creates a power vacuum into which the brutal and well-organized move.
Regarding #1: the liberal establishment does not represent liberals as a whole. I support addressing the problem through a shift within liberalism, the development of a reasoned liberal alternative (one already exists, it is just a matter of articulating it fully) to both the militant left and the populist right. I only trust liberals to carry out a shift in the proper manner. Populism is too risky. It is a tool that is likely to blow off one's hand, and must not be used.
Regarding #2: since the emotions of fear fueled by diminished power exist, there will almost certainly at some point exist leaders who are capable of tapping into them and masses who contribute large amounts of resources to them. Even a 1% chance of populist upheaval is too much of a chance, as far as I'm concerned.
Regarding #3: no, the Nazis never had more than a tiny chance to beat the Allies. The war was pretty much lost on September 3, 1939. Keep in mind that the Allies were almost certainly going to win the race to nuclear weapons in almost any scenario. Overy is wrong. The Soviets probably could have figured out how to at least survive institutionally rather than collapsing, but they didn't even manage to survive, having mismanaged the economy and social context for decades by 1989.
He's referring to a much broader spectrum of people than that comprising /pol/, most likely including yourself
What does the nobel prize have to do with /pol/? They don't read
butthurt leftist detected
Wrong. I'm a liberal.
>He's referring to a much broader spectrum of people than that comprising /pol/
No shit Sherlock, it's literally written in the quote.
>most likely including yourself
Hell yeah
either way, your wife sucks black cock
Interesting. Taleb has a completely differeing viewpoint.
Yeah man, just like how all the native Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, Africans, Indians, Asians, Aztecs &c. all ceased their squabbling and banded against the eternal Euro when they came knocking.
Right?
So much this
> It's completely insignificant
Not quite. It is excessively influential, but that is to be expected given the oligarchy and strict restrictions on representation.
>I'm advocating for what we have now in the West: a sort of republic-oligarchy, with multiple separate and somewhat competing centers of power, and populism as a relatively weak force.
If you are stubborn, you've got a life of endless loss ahead of you. Read Spengler and watch.
> I'm advocating for what we have now in the West: a sort of republic-oligarchy, with multiple separate and somewhat competing centers of power, and populism as a relatively weak force.
You know that the fall of Rome is not because of populism right? It came after the death of the Gracchi brothers since the elites refused to enact land reforms. Liberals need to know that there are nothing left for them to liberalize, what we really need is reforms.
Fucking hell look at how rundown is our society, we spent years waging foreign wars for the Israelis, our politicians were bought up by the banks. OUr TV, social medias are running an inversion of what is healthy and normal.
If you want to maintain current order so much then it is absolutely necessary for liberals to get a kick from their behinds. It should not come from you of course, it should come from their opposition. They should be proven for once in their lives, that progression is not an inevitable, that applealing to the freak fringe demographics (LGBTQWNSL) just to stroke their moralfaggotry are not the way to do things
Here is the possible future, either the socialists will come to known as the new liberals and enact a second french revolution (which will be bloody) like their wet dreams or there will be an Ceasarian figure emerge from the right with all the attributes you despise: fascism, authoritarian. So get your asses together you fucks
>tfw you hate individualism and collectivism
WHAT DO
Where were you when Marinetti predicted Veeky Forums?
>Fortunately, the Variety Theater, born like us into the age of electricity, is without traditions, masters, or dogmas, and it feeds on the rapidly passing events of the moment.
>The Variety Theater is pure action and sets out to distract and amuse, using comic effects, erotic suggestion, or startling imagination.
>Authors, actors, and stagehands, in the Variety Theater, have only one raison d’être, one means of triumph, that of endlessly inventing new ways of causing amazement. From which it follows that it is absolutely impossible for them to fall into stagnation or to repeat themselves.
>And here are just a few of these wondrous inventions: 1. powerful caricatures; 2. the very depths of absurdity; 3. delightful, unsurpassable ironies; 4. all-embracing, definitive symbols; 5. cascades of uncontrollable laughter; 6. well-conceived analogies between human beings, the animal kingdom, the plant world, and the world of machines; 7. glimpses of revealing cynicism; 8. intricate interplay of witty sayings, puns, and riddles, which have the effect of airing the brain in an enjoyable manner; 9. the whole gamut of laughter and smiles to calm the nerves; 10. the whole gamut of silliness, idiocy, gawkiness, and absurdities, which drive intelligence imperceptibly to the edge of madness; 11. all the new meanings of light, sound, noise, and words, with their mysterious and inexplicable extensions into the least known parts of our sensibilities; 12. the piling up of events that are raced through in an instant, and of stage characters bundled off, from right to left, in a couple of minutes [...]; 13. instructive satirical pantomime; 14. caricatures of grief and nostalgia, strongly imprinted upon our sensibilities through gestures that are exaggerated by their spasmodic, hesitant, and wearying slowness; grave words made ridiculous by comic body language, bizarre disguises, twisted words, grimaces, and buffoonery.
>The Variety Theater of today is a melting pot of the many elements of a new sensibility in the making. In it one finds an ironic decomposition of all the tired old stereotypes—the Beautiful, the Great, the Solemn, the Religious, the Ferocious, the Seductive, and the Terrifying, as well as abstract sketches of the new prototypes that will take their places.
>The Variety Theater is thus a synthesis of everything that humankind has hitherto instinctively refined to lift its spirits, by laughing at material and moral anguish. What’s more, it is the bubbling fusion of all laughter, all smiles, all guffaws, all contortions, and all grimaces of future humanity.
>The Variety Theater is the only one that closely involves the audience. The latter does not sit there unmoving, like some stupid voyeur, but noisily participates in the action. It sings along with the actors, beats time with the orchestra, and communicates through spontaneous witticisms and bizarre exchanges with the actors, who themselves lark about with the musicians.
>The Variety Theater is an instructive schooling in sincerity for the male, since it plays up his predatory instincts as well as tearing away all the woman’s veils, all her words, her sighs, her romantic sobs that deform her and conceal her true qualities. Instead, it emphasizes all the admirable, instinctive qualities in a woman, her particular strengths—her grasp of things, her seductiveness, her fickleness, and her resilience.
>The Variety Theater is a school for subtlety, complexity, and mental synthesis for its clowns, its conjurors, its mind readers, its geniuses with mental arithmetic, its goofy actors, its imitators and parodists, its musical wizards, and its American eccentrics, those whose pregnant fantasies give birth to the most unlikely objects and devices.
>The Variety Theater is the only school to recommend to quickwitted adolescents and youngsters because it rapidly and incisively explains the most abstruse problems and the most complex political events.
>The Variety Theater is naturally antiacademic, primitive, and naive, and thus carries more significance because of the unexpectedness of its revelations and the simplicity of its means.
>The Variety Theater destroys the Solemn, the Sacred, the Serious, and the Sublime in Art with a capital A. It assists in the Futurist destruction of immortal masterpieces, by plagiarizing them, parodying them, treating them casually, without formal presentation and without any apologies, just like any other ordinary turn.
become a god-fearing christian. I am not joking, you will learn to love and help the weaks, but at the same time being industrious with the whole faith through work ideal
>hate individualism and collectivism
ah disregard my post
>Internet allows discussion, open debates, free speech, arguments, contrasting sources, etc. That's why they are so afraid of the internet and talk about how professional they are, the post-truth.
Yet its main use is to spread moral panics and scold the politically incorrect.
Maybe we have dismantled an (awful) one-way system for no system at all.
I'd say he's fetishizing education.
If the Nobel Prize is seriously at risk from Facebook-tier dialogue, there is a serious problem with academia, not the public at large.
Indeed. Derrida and Feyerabend would be proud.
The internet is one of the best things to happen to society in human history.
Populism is great and has been persecuted by intellectuals and elites precisely for the reason that makes it great: it gives bite to the bark of the common man.
You all know this to be true. You want so desperately to be one of these "towering intellectuals" like Eco that are willing to credit the existence of such a tower by will and hope alone; that there is none in reality is a dirty little fact that you must expunge.
>tfw you deterritorialize the intellect
drown in sorrow until you can no longer
>Social media and the internet have given the right to talk to legionaries of young people I don't agree with as a pretentious boomer, who first talked only at the bar after a glass of wine without harming my fragile boomer ego. They were immediately silenced by drunk boomer hippies like me, while they now have the same right to speak of a Nobel Prize without threat of violence. It's the invasion of my massive ego that is so large everyone ought to listen to me instead and obey.
>it gives bite to the bark of the common man
Populism actually mostly just fulfills the lowest and most surface-level desires of the masses. It doesn't leave a self-sustained economy/system behind itself. Its purpose is simply to make the common man not bite at the populist politician.
Mmm yeah, Umberto Eco, that violent boomer hippie, fuck him amirite?
pro tip: commit suicide