ime these dark cathedral / intellectual alt-right guys can be extraordinarily fascinating to talk with partially bc many of them read lots of weird shit. moldbug always had a corpus of alt-canon he was plugging (a lot of which is on that list)
Do you get the impression they're reading much stuff that has case studies in it or are they more into, I suppose, dark aesthetics?
― Never changed username before (cardamon), Monday, 18 March 2019 21:57 (five years ago) link
They tend to mistake the latter for the former.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 08:51 (five years ago) link
“I want his mother and his father dead! I want his house burnt to the ground”“Says here his father already got whacked at Deely Plaza in 1963, boss”— Wyatt Chet Failson III esq. (@TheFanciestLad) March 19, 2019
― maura, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 12:48 (five years ago) link
As far as the reading lists are concerned i think there's a ton of play between pleasure of text and discourse as rational structure that people - quite rightly! - blur and lose themselves within
i.e. I don't believe in "not getting it", the possibilities for what you get from something as a reader are the heart of reading
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 12:55 (five years ago) link
the worst solecism is thinking that you understand your pet writers in ways that yr ideological foes don't
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 12:57 (five years ago) link
Does that cover nazi readings of Nietzsche?
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 12:58 (five years ago) link
I think so but i was also thinking of non-nazis insisting that those readings are definitively wrong
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:00 (five years ago) link
I mostly agree with you, unless you exacerbate your relativism to such a degree that all readings become equally valid for the sake of an omnipotent hermeneutics, in which case I'd argue that texts are entities in and of themselves and as such they allow for a limited set of interpretive possibilities, i.e. you can't draw just any conclusion from them (cf. legal texts) although the field remains quite open in the grand scheme of thins.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:06 (five years ago) link
*things
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:07 (five years ago) link
I guess my take on that, such as it is, is that i'm open to a limitless hermeneutics but in practice the argument is fundamentally unimportant, any value a specific reading has is far more tied into the value (including aesthetic pleasure) of the reading itself. Outlandish interpretations probably tend to uselessness but probably not because of their disconnect from a true reading.
Struggling to be clear there but hopefully you get my gist
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:12 (five years ago) link
i'd argue that, just like with people, if you torture any text enough it will tell you what you want to hear
― the scientology of mountains (rushomancy), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:13 (five years ago) link
And that's aside from arguing that claims to understand a text from people far removed from the cultural context of the author are flawed as fuck
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:14 (five years ago) link
But i don't believe a reading is torture - again, you're implying a fundamental correct reading of something which doesn't lend itself to a transparent rendering of truth
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:16 (five years ago) link
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague)
well, as one example, the current legal doctrine on the meaning of the second amendment is the result of not just a tortuous reading, but one that does actual malice to the text
i don't know about "fundamentally correct" reading but damn if there aren't fundamentally incorrect readings
― the scientology of mountains (rushomancy), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:21 (five years ago) link
I do get what you're saying, NV, and concur. My position, which is that reading is a two-way street (the reader is free to read the text as s/he sees fit but his/her reading is also shaped by what the text has to offer, which tends towards limitlessness but can never quite achieve it) doesn't contradict yours as I understand it.
To go back to Nietzsche for a second (or the Bible or Heidegger or Cioran, etc.), extracting a white supremacist übermensch out of his work requires that you disregard major swathes of it (almost of all it tbh), so while nothing prevents a given reader from doing that in practice, it's still pretty fucking dumb and lazy in my book.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:22 (five years ago) link
Put differently, I can read whatever I want into absolutely anything. But some texts make it more difficult for me to do that, for better or for worse.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:23 (five years ago) link
I think my underlying belief is that the wrongness lies in the white supremacy so any reading that wants to argue for that is fuckwd at that point, language games aside
xp rush, i get what you're saying there. there's something about legislation as text that wants to treat legal text as different - more concrete? - than other kinds of writing. I don't have a pat answer to that, but i think intentionality arguments hit similar difficulties
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:28 (five years ago) link
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, March 19, 2019 5:57 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
idk is this in fact the worst solecism
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:29 (five years ago) link
― pomenitul
it's dumb and lazy to be sure but it's also, i find, how humans tend to read by default. confirmation bias, right?
i do think you can read cioran as a fascist, but only his works from that period where he actually was a fascist.
― the scientology of mountains (rushomancy), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:31 (five years ago) link
I think i've thought for a long time that trying to prove your enemies are *wrong* is a fool's errand, so just pick a side and fuck trying to debate the undebatable
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:33 (five years ago) link
lol Brad just let me wave my empty rhetoric around k?
― Helel Cool J (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:34 (five years ago) link
look, if someone's a flat-earther, one can pretty easily prove they're wrong, you're just not going to convince them of the fact. i don't expect everybody to always be rational, but i'd hope we'd live in a world that gives people access to the truth and the ability to differentiate it from lies. right now i don't really believe we do.
― the scientology of mountains (rushomancy), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:38 (five years ago) link
not keen on any sort of transcendent truth or values but coherence is useful as a criteria imo
― ogmor, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:43 (five years ago) link
It's not like, as a matter of principle, interpreting Nietzsche as a white supremacist is necessarily part of an argument for white supremacy. We may read him that way in the process of denouncing white supremacy. The validity of the reading and the validity of the philosophy we ascribe to the text come apart in that case.
― jmm, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 13:47 (five years ago) link
if only we were so sure we were the ppl reading the texts right and they're the ones misusing it as tho a great contribution to philosophy or literature has never been made by a [sometimes literal] nazi
― Mordy, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 14:00 (five years ago) link
oh, the norwegians know better than that, but even still they struggle with knut hamsun
i'm not one for "exculpatory" readings myself nor would i consider myself an apologist
― the scientology of mountains (rushomancy), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 14:02 (five years ago) link
https://elink.thedailybeast.com/view/5bae99853f92a46ecbcf5b739rlr3.15s/0f27da77
Remember Baked Alaska, the alt-right memelord who got pepper-sprayed in Charlottesville and memorably cried out for milk? Now he tells me he’s ditching the alt-right, which he says has ruined his life.Alaska — real name Timothy Gionet — called me last week from Phoenix, where he’s living after watching his internet fameball career crash and burn along with the rest of his racist movement.“It’s been a pretty big disaster, to be honest,” Gionet said. “It’s been terrible for my employment opportunities, my reputation. It’s ruined lifelong friendships, it’s ruined relationships with family. It’s hurt my soul.”Now Gionet is trying to pivot away from the alt-right, making a video about how the New Zealand shooter was radicalized by right-wing internet memes. And he’s reinventing himself as a fan of Andrew Yang, the Democratic presidential hopeful beloved by 4Chan. He’s even made a rap about it.
Alaska — real name Timothy Gionet — called me last week from Phoenix, where he’s living after watching his internet fameball career crash and burn along with the rest of his racist movement.
“It’s been a pretty big disaster, to be honest,” Gionet said. “It’s been terrible for my employment opportunities, my reputation. It’s ruined lifelong friendships, it’s ruined relationships with family. It’s hurt my soul.”
Now Gionet is trying to pivot away from the alt-right, making a video about how the New Zealand shooter was radicalized by right-wing internet memes. And he’s reinventing himself as a fan of Andrew Yang, the Democratic presidential hopeful beloved by 4Chan. He’s even made a rap about it.
― j., Thursday, 28 March 2019 02:56 (five years ago) link
that's...almost good?
― you know who deserves sitewide mod privileges? (m bison), Thursday, 28 March 2019 03:00 (five years ago) link
A friend of mine went to high school with this clown. Suffice to say she is not impressed. (He apparently has always been a trend-chasing asshole among other things.)
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 28 March 2019 03:02 (five years ago) link
fuck that asshole
― brimstead, Thursday, 28 March 2019 03:09 (five years ago) link
Gionet, who claims that he sees “normie-tier conservatives” being radicalized to the far-right on social media, says he wants to warn other people away from being recruited to white supremacist groups through memes and “ironic” racism.“I really thought this was just fun memes and jokes and edgy 4Chan posting and all this stuff, and then you get to the end of this rabbit hole and you realize these guys are serious,” Gionet said.
“I really thought this was just fun memes and jokes and edgy 4Chan posting and all this stuff, and then you get to the end of this rabbit hole and you realize these guys are serious,” Gionet said.
― Trϵϵship, Thursday, 28 March 2019 03:10 (five years ago) link
Burn with the rest of them, fuckface
― I want to change my display name (dan m), Thursday, 28 March 2019 03:34 (five years ago) link
he'll be back w/ the nazis once he can figure out how to monetize it
see also: glenn beck
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Thursday, 28 March 2019 04:33 (five years ago) link
i have no idea who andrew yang is and i don't follow this stuff very well but the quoted statements have this sort of self-aggrandizing victimhood vibe to them to them that gives me a certain amount of pause
people want to turn over a new leaf, i think that's great, but he has every reason to be insincere and i have no reason to trust him or give him the time of day
― Jaki Liebowitz (rushomancy), Thursday, 28 March 2019 06:14 (five years ago) link
i get a ron paul-like cult vibe from him and his followers
like, he repeats simple ideas and people are attracted to that
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Thursday, 28 March 2019 06:15 (five years ago) link
i did see a yang bumper sticker a few days ago, in fact it's perhaps the only 2020 race sticker i've seen so far
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Thursday, 28 March 2019 06:16 (five years ago) link
do you work in a tech corridor
― j., Thursday, 28 March 2019 06:23 (five years ago) link
haven't paid too much attn to yang so could be simplifying this but the vibe i get is: less engagement, less worry, the crisis is past, the smart people are in charge now, some of them are computers, here's a little allowance, come back in four years. call that what you want.
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 28 March 2019 08:13 (five years ago) link
not hugely eager to discover what such an administration's sensible engineer's approach to, say, climate refugees would be; but maybe he's talked about it.
― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 28 March 2019 08:19 (five years ago) link
so one of these dudes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement
no offense but i wish those types would stick with folks like ron paul, it's easier to govern when all the obviously wrong people are on one side
― Jaki Liebowitz (rushomancy), Thursday, 28 March 2019 12:55 (five years ago) link
like i'm frustrated that the republican party has become the anti-vaxxer party because there should be no anti-vaxxers, but if anybody is going to be an anti-vaxxer it might as well be a republican because at least then people aren't going to push you to accommodate them, you know?
― Jaki Liebowitz (rushomancy), Thursday, 28 March 2019 12:57 (five years ago) link
yeah not until they gain clout in the party but then lookout
― j., Thursday, 28 March 2019 13:04 (five years ago) link
Yang's platform seemed alright to me. Maybe someone itt can explain to me what's wrong with him.
― frogbs, Thursday, 28 March 2019 13:26 (five years ago) link
i feel like the very nature of the republican party in 2019 is going to naturally be attractive to lysenkoists and other pseudoscientists of all stripes - they are fundamentally the "alternative facts" party
― Jaki Liebowitz (rushomancy), Thursday, 28 March 2019 13:29 (five years ago) link
I like booker’s idea for savings accounts for children
― Trϵϵship, Thursday, 28 March 2019 13:32 (five years ago) link
Wait i thought this was the 2020 thread bc ppl were talking abt yang
― Trϵϵship, Thursday, 28 March 2019 13:34 (five years ago) link
Cory Booker is not alt right—for all his faults
― Jaki Liebowitz (rushomancy), Wednesday, March 27, 2019 11:14 PM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
otm
― gbx, Thursday, 28 March 2019 16:49 (five years ago) link
don't trust a purportedly reformed Nazi doing a press tour
― moose; squirrel (silby), Thursday, 28 March 2019 16:51 (five years ago) link
ike i'm frustrated that the republican party has become the anti-vaxxer party because there should be no anti-vaxxers, but if anybody is going to be an anti-vaxxer it might as well be a republican because at least then people aren't going to push you to accommodate them, you know?
― Jaki Liebowitz (rushomancy), Thursday, March 28, 2019 8:57 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
don’t think anti-vaxxers being primarily republicans is remotely true tbh
― k3vin k., Thursday, 28 March 2019 17:46 (five years ago) link