the alt-right

A yearning for community

sorry to sound reductionist again but yknow our economic system is *fantastic* at creating a hyper-atomized and alienated population

That is undoubtedly a factor, it's just not the be-all and end-all. A man in his late twenties who works in IT, to take a particularly glaring cliché, but who is ultimately viewed as a neckbeard loser virgin by his peers due to his poor grasp of normative social cues and unattractive appearance is also a prime candidate for MRA-ship and the like. I am simply wary of the tendency to systematically pin the blame on capitalism – it is a culprit, yes, but not the only one, and hardly to such an extent.

A man in his late twenties who works in IT, to take a particularly glaring cliché, but who is ultimately viewed as a neckbeard loser virgin by his peers due to his poor grasp of normative social cues and unattractive appearance

I'm sure this was just as much of a thing in the 80s/90s, but they didn't tend to calcify that resentment into something resembling an ideology before (at least not at the levels we're seeing, to my knowledge). What's changed between then and now, besides the appearance of Reddit?

Reddit, 4chan and others are game-changers. They've provided an outlet for their tacit suffering, giving them a modicum of twisted hope.

If you really think Reddit and 4chan are more consequential (or equally consequential) catalysts for brewing resentment than capitalism then I don't know what to tell you

Are we talking about root causes or catalysts?

I'm more concerned with the former

shutting down reddit and 4chan would accomplish nothing (though it would be satisfying, lol); offering a robust and convincing counternarrative for the malaise and alienation people experience might not accomplish nothing

I certainly don't think of social media as a root cause, for what it's worth. Like I said, it's a primarily cultural, even psychological problem that is in some ways aggravated by capitalism, though possibly alleviated it by it as well. If you believe these types didn't exist at all in the Eastern bloc throughout the communist era, for instance, trust me, it's a lot more complicated than that. The fact that they've channelled that resentment into something resembling an ideology in the past decade or so is a slightly different matter as far as I'm concerned.

xp

What's changed between then and now, besides the appearance of Reddit?

The rise of everyone else - a black president, nearly a female one.

Dude, the internet is absolutely an accelerant for this shit. It's never been so easy to find and communicate with people across the globe who will buttress whatever worldview you hold or are susceptible to buying into.

Not to mention that the distribution of alt-righters varies quite a bit among capitalist countries, with the US reigning supreme due to other factors (the association of masculinity with phallic gun violence being one of them).

xp

No oen is dumb enough to argue, and no one is arguing, that the internet is not *an accelerant*

reddit is practically a left-wing institution you guys or at the very least center left.

"sorry to sound reductionist again but yknow our economic system is *fantastic* at creating a hyper-atomized and alienated population"

this is by design. in communitarian economies families + communities are developed inherently through the structure of the economic system (through things such as inheritance laws). although egalitarian communitarian societies do exist, it seems to me like capitalism has been much better at generating equality. societies that have not moved to a market economy are generally stunted (by nepotism/corruption). i personally think we've become too atomized but it's good to talk about why this has come about. capitalism isn't a magic demon -- when you move towards an individualized economy (aka no forced inheritance) you gain economic growth, you create opportunities for people who might otherwise grow up and die on the same family homestead, etc. But then you also lose the family and consequently the community.

tldr the market economy has upsides and downsides for the very things we claim to be interested in (equality, egalitarianism, individualism, liberalism, and then on the other side, tradition, family, community, etc).

I even like to think, perhaps naively, that if Canada weren't right next to the US we would probably be less prone to copying even the most harmful of our neighbours' ideological trends, though you could conversely argue that this proximity has partially inoculated us against their excesses. If memory serves, Canada is the country whose opinion of the US was most negatively affected in the wake of Trump's election. Do degrees of capitalism alone explain this difference? Some of it, I'll wager, but not all.

xp

Canada was mostly shielded from the '08 crisis, for starters.

Mordy otm re: reddit. Not so sure about 'capitalism has been much better at generating equality', though it's a perfectly defensible point. It also depends on the instance of capitalism under discussion.

ultimately western capitalism has been an engine for exacerbating *in*equality

like on a massive scale

compared to what? feudal europe?

things are not more unequal now than when 80-90% of the population were literally serfs.

compared to a few decades ago, aka within living memory

a few decades ago we had a market capitalist economy

Income inequality is at an all-time high, but there are other types of inequality that need to be taken into account (gendered, coloured, sexual, etc.). Not to mention that extreme poverty has been halved since 1990.

i'm familiar with parfit et al but i don't know that i buy that. at previous times in history some people owned everything and 90% of the population owned nothing. nothing can compare to that level of inequality. if we're comparing this moment of market capitalism to a previous moment of market capitalism then what we really need to discuss are the unique features that have increased inequality but it doesn't really make sense to say capitalism is to blame for inequality bc it's more unequal now than other times we've had capitalism.

I would like to go on record in case I was unclear and say feudalism was bad

Is that extreme poverty reduction figure global or US?

Global.

that makes more sense.

capitalism isn't a magic demon -- when you move towards an individualized economy (aka no forced inheritance) you gain economic growth, you create opportunities for people who might otherwise grow up and die on the same family homestead, etc.

yes, capitalism has inarguably done a wonderful job of accelerating productive forces and raising living standards both in the US and abroad, but I don't see how it can offer a believably hopeful vision for more of this growth in the future to the average american as we stare down climate change, automation, and (yes) skyrocketing inequality

you'd hope that we could restrain those negative impulses but we have a different problem which is that democracies have a very difficult time getting anything done at all and esp our democracy in the US. if one guy owned everything and made all the decisions he could just be like "no more coal, everyone gets fed" etc. alternatively he could be like, "let's kill a ton of people for fun." so there are trade offs.

Andrew Farrell is extremely otm, btw

I don't think you need to think capitalism is a "magic demon" to think it doesn't allow for great strategies to deal with our most pressing problems.

the problem w/ capitalism is that it's all about rewarding acquisition and particularly vis-a-vis inequality the ownership of capital tends to generate more and more capital until everything is owned by the same few people. but the only path out of that afaict is gov intervention / redistribution etc. but those are things that assume you're going to keep capitalism bc if you're planning on moving forward you don't need to redistribute you just nationalize the whole thing and then deal with those sets of problems - how do you handle power being concentrated in the hands of the few? is there a meaningful difference between a few people owning everything for themselves or a few people owning everything as representatives of the populace? ideally you'd want to combine some kind of feedback mechanism along with nationalization so that you can force those representatives to exercise their power responsibly but the problem w/ giving all the assets to a small group of people is that now any kind of democratic check is undermined. i feel like democracy can only work if the ppl participating in it not only have skin in the game but have skin at all. otherwise you're depending on the largesse of the guy in charge and this is ultimately different from an enlightened despot how? i've looked into actual worker run enterprises but successes tend to be extremely limited, i'm not sure you can run an entire country using that kind of collectivism - someone is going to be making decisions, etc. so assume we stick with capitalism bc that allows all kinds of things - what we need to figure out is how to put meaningful breaks on the excesses that are produced. democracy has so far been vulnerable - both bc ppl w/ all the capital can (and do) take steps to undermine true democratic participation (a. undermining democracy) and bc democracy itself is weak, we have trouble generating consensus, people are not perfect voters/actors so they have trouble executing their will in a productive manner (b. democracy itself). idk i hope for some kind of new noblesse oblige where the ppl w/ capital realize they're gonna be murdered by the peasantry if they don't clean things up. however w/ transnational corporations, easy global travel, global finance, etc, the kochs or thiel or whoever can just book it if the peasants come to the gate w/ the pitchforks. so i don't know what the solution is and tbh i'm v pessimistic about the future. i just don't think that capitalism is quite the boogyman here since a lot of the issues we're dealing w/ are not limited to a free market economy and could even be exacerbated by some of the alternatives.

tldr who cares i have work to do sorry for wasting everyone's time

I'm not sure I like measuring suffering in percentages. Surely it's the total number that is important?

I think those are very reasonable fears mordy. my hope is that we see some real-world models start to emerge and provide new strategies. (this is why I think every leftist, including me, is going to be completely insufferable whenever the next UK election gets triggered)

Great post, Mordy – mostly mirrors my own worries and scepticism.

I'm not sure I like measuring suffering in percentages. Surely it's the total number that is important?

― Leaghaidh am brón an t-anam bochd (dowd), Tuesday, February 13, 2018 8:32 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/

I'm not a utilitarian, never mind a negative one.

I just mean that I don't see the good of 45% of people starving vs 50% (say) if it's a greater number of people starving.

Are they ours or theirs starving

Mordy otm obv

Also inequality is a strange thing to measure on even if everyone agreed what we meant by inequality

Oh boy, guess who got printed in the Independent for writing about this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jordan-peterson-clinical-psychologist-canada-popularity-convincing-why-left-wing-alt-right-cathy-a8208301.html

(Hint: Lacan isn’t mentioned till the 4th paragraph in)

make it stop

With Russell Brand for tomorrow's podcast https://t.co/H7GLekceJz pic.twitter.com/ukXAdQXeov

— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) February 13, 2018

smh @ both of these developments

pwease save us youtube daddy

oh god

Russell Brand isn’t that bad