the alt-right

yeah, a lot of my leftie friends growing up were consummate fuck-ups who couldn't get their own shit together who just happened to have brilliant political minds.

i think for most ppl in the world improving your material conditions means increasing your assets, thereby increasing your autonomy and security. it's true that in an idealized leftist world there would be sufficient safety nets that you could do anything and have your material needs met. but in our world you need to make more money, accumulate assets, 'be your own boss,' etc. these things are as i think you guys agree incompatible with left-wing econ. (not inherently - i know wealthy leftists - but at least in a phenomenological sense.)

People know what the academic job market is like? You don't become a tenured postmodern neo-Marxist without being ambitious, driven, self-motivated, hard-working, etc!

But I don't think yr average confused Peterson acolyte is super angling for that place in the corporate boardroom. xpost

not the corporate boardroom but owning their own company? absolutely imo.

somewhere along this line of "what is self-improvement?" or "what is the good life?" is the fault-line i think where the impossibilty of persuading the other side that they are wrong and you are right thru rational discourse is situated and other forms of conflict begin

yeah the "personal responsibility" concept has very different meanings across the political spectrum, for one

"you are being held down by capitalism" doesn't lend itself obviously to many courses of action, i mean maybe throwing rocks through Starbucks windows but idk if that helps anyone very much.

it helps whatever news outlet is reporting on said aimless looting. it also helps the performative activist look cool to his friends. of course the most promoted ways to "fight back" are the least effective, most sensational, most marketable.

aside from that there are many courses of action. re-using products instead of throwing them out after one use. mending clothes instead of buying new ones. holding oneself accountable for consumption habits. all of this makes a difference and all of it can be personal day-to-day actions.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Afeq40qJL._SY450_.jpg

not the corporate boardroom but owning their own company? absolutely imo.

I dunno, I think the ills that Peterson claims to have solutions for are as much or more spiritual and psychological as material - I mean you yourself included meeting a significant other in a list of objectives our hypothetical person may aspire to, reducing it all to "they want a better job" seems reductive.

iow it's true that certain individual characteristics (ambition, hustle, hunger, intelligence, determination) do make an actual difference in one's personal success. and i think it's true that you can work on these attributes in yourself (tho i doubt that most "self-help" can help you do it, even tho what it requires is helping yourself - or being helped by a mentor). i just don't see that the left has an interest in this beyond improving yourself for the sake of making more successful political interventions and making a more egalitarian society. but ppl are mostly selfish and where they aren't selfish it is still in an immediate/direct sense - they want to help ppl they know and like not the whole population of people (generally speaking). and this is also where i think self-help stuff does intersect w/ right-wing politics in that right-wing politics emphasize the importance of the individual in outcomes. such a perspective might not be as ideologically coherent ultimately (and lacks compassion on an individual level) but it offers an actual route to improving your material conditions and i think that's appealing. and once you accept that you can improve your life then what is with all those people who can't or don't? obviously they're lazy, or stupid, or etc. again it doesn't have to be this way you can be ambitious and hungry and work hard and take responsibility and also have compassion for those with material conditions and background and neural dispositions don't allow them to make similar changes.

Idk I get the sense a lot of self-help material is designed to make you think you were fine all along.

xp

ultimately you're talking about which is the more appealing narrative rather than arguing for which is objectively the best route to feeling happier or more secure or more fulfilled as a person, is that right?

because if that's true i agree, appeals to our own personal efficacy are more inspiring. i don't think i believe in those narratives's underpinning assumptions so much.

no i'm saying that the only way to improve your quality of life in a capitalist society (where the human body is the commodity) is by improving the condition of the commodity. learn a new skill, improve your physical appearance, smooth out the rough bits of your personality. idk if it's the route to making yourself happy but it's the route towards succeeding in this world we've built. and that the "personal responsibility" narrative is more likely to lead to these improvements whereas the structural arguments might ultimately lead to material improvements but it's not really meant to slot into the cravings of capitalism. nb what i'm not saying is that any of this is a /good/ thing or something we should celebrate. just that it's a rational thing if you're living in the US.

I dunno, I think the ills that Peterson claims to have solutions for are as much or more spiritual and psychological as material - I mean you yourself included meeting a significant other in a list of objectives our hypothetical person may aspire to, reducing it all to "they want a better job" seems reductive.

The symptoms may be spiritual/psychological but the causes are mostly material imo. They know they're not going to get to grow up to be alpha breadwinners.

lol the left is absolutely occupied with ensuring people's metarial needs are met.

obviously the best way to succeed is to be born into a lot of money but you can't really self-help your way into that. but maybe you can self-help your kids into that condition.

lol the left is absolutely occupied with ensuring people's metarial needs are met.

i think maybe you're not tracking this discussion

what we're saying is that if you have a lot of assumptions that a socialist would reject, it doesn't leave a lot of room for socialism

lol the left is absolutely occupied with ensuring people's metarial needs are met.

Yes, but via collective struggle, not individual self-improvement. It's definitely not as easy a sell. xps yeah we're all in agreement on this I think

Serious question: why is the left unable to reach out to the types of dudes who fall for JP's drivel?

― pomenitul, 23. marts 2018 15:14 (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because bigotry is one hell of a drug. Let's not kid ourselves it's any more complicated than that, really.

The symptoms may be spiritual/psychological but the causes are mostly material imo. They know they're not going to get to grow up to be alpha breadwinners.

I 100% think that this is what's behind most of the disaffected young men that we think of when we have these discussions, I just feel like Peterson fans are a variant on that model for whom it doesn't hold true as much. The obsession with Jung and Disney is telling in this regard.

That just begs the question, though.

xp

fred you really believe that bigotry is itself the impetus and has nothing to do w/ other material conditions? like "antisemitism is the socialism of fools" doesn't resonate with your experience at all? you think the two things are totally unrelated? i get the impression you do but that seems v simplistic to me (and also extremely pessimistic about what any kind of left-wing politics can achieve).

Mordy - No I read the last 50 posts and I'm happy with what I've just posted

no i'm saying that the only way to improve your quality of life in a capitalist society...

ok i have qualms about "only way" - maybe would replace it with "way over which you have the most personal influence" (assuming some kind of free will etc.) and of course it doesn't guarantee quality of life improvements, even materially, never mind mentally or spiritually. even without explicitly espousing a leftist critique of our societies as they exist today i think a structural analysis would have to allow for the huge influence of uncontrollable forces, from luck and "the economy" to who knows what else?

The left is definitely able to reach out to a ton of disaffected youth these days. See a billion think pieces about how identity politics are ruining academia. Or your local Bernie Sanders rally.

of course it doesn't guarantee quality of life improvements, even materially, never mind mentally or spiritually.

nothing is guaranteed but even the left today concedes that self-help like going to college should be made available to everyone so obv we think that it matters

you can improve your min wage through a union-type action (tho less and less likely in 2018 that such a thing will succeed) but even that has a cap on what you can do. if you aspire to more - like becoming management yourself, or accumulating capital, aka the American dream, collective action is not sufficient.

― Mordy, Friday, 23 March 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Many could take part in collective action, gain confidence through that and gain new skills in organising etc.

i don't really believe you read the last 50 posts bc i've addressed that exact argument

The left is definitely able to reach out to a ton of disaffected youth these days. See a billion think pieces about how identity politics are ruining academia. Or your local Bernie Sanders rally.

Basically what I was alluding to earlier, with more snark.

Different things in different posts clash with in your other posts - its a pretty incoherent worldview you have. xp

If we're asking why the left can't reach the type of ppl who're reached by Peterson's self-help stuff saying it's down to bigotry makes little sense because as mentioned in this thread tons of ppl who fall for it aren't aware of Peterson's personal bigotries at all.

It's also pretty insane to think "think pieces about how identity politics are ruining academia" are a young person thing but that's a different discussion.

even the left today concedes that self-help like going to college should be made available to everyone so obv we think that it matters

admittedly i find myself frequently at odds with what "the left" broadly speaking thinks is worth using or salvaging from the current infrastructure. that might be privileged daydreaming. in terms of this society now i agree.

i do think there's a useful distinction between structuralist critique and leftist critique

Different things in different posts clash with in your other posts - its a pretty incoherent worldview you have. xp

lol ok thumbs up be well bro

It's also pretty insane to think "think pieces about how identity politics are ruining academia" are a young person thing but that's a different discussion.

I think the point is that those pieces are written by old people who are complaining about young people who ARE being reached by the left, as a sign that, yes, the left is reaching disaffected youth.

Edit for grammar as you like

Mordy, Pankaj Mishra has been really good at connecting JPs fascist mysticism to the historical materialist context, and I definitely agree that of course it has to do with the economic crises we've been in for a decade at this point. I just react to the constant search for any and all explanation beyond the bigotry. As if bigotry isn't both a powerful personal force, and in many cases a rational response to the ongoing loss of privilege.

I just think this idea that there must be some idea, some potion, that will turn their hearts to a better way, is wrong. The left can't do that. And I don't consider that pessimistic. Because what we can do, though, is creating coalitions and fight them. But that takes looking the problem in the eye.

otoh aren't you often arguing that those think pieces are overstating their cases all the time? both things can't be true. xp

Ah ok, I misunderstood then, sorry Fred. xposts

If the problem is that they fall for the self-help without knowing about the bigotry, then point out the bigotry, and that should do the trick, no?

Mordy, I just don't think identity politics are ruining academia. I definitely think a lot of students are into identity politics, that was the case when I studied at UCSD, and I have no reason to think it would be different now.

Btw I wasn't suggesting that the left is incapable of reaching disaffected young men (I was primarily thinking of them and no so much of women in this one instance). I'm more curious about why its discourse is so repulsive to the JP crowd. Granted, some of them are no doubt in positions of privilege and hence self-consistent in their egotism, but others could conceivably have gone the other way were it not for [insert answer here]. The latter is what I'm curious about, not least because their ideological adherence to alt-right snake oil is potentially reversible. What is it about the left that fails to speak to that particular subset? (Trying to further clarify my question here.)

i was speaking more to sund4r who i think has made the case before that these think pieces are overstating their cases and most ppl in the academy are not into idpol.

I just react to the constant search for any and all explanation beyond the bigotry. As if bigotry isn't both a powerful personal force, and in many cases a rational response to the ongoing loss of privilege.

hatred of the Other is a constant in human history but i think that if we don't acknowledge what motivates different bigotries you end up with a weird ahistorical almost metaphysical picture of the human condition (i get the impression Coates agrees w/ that fwiw so maybe i shouldn't be surprised). i.e. you have more in common w/ orthodox jews who say that the Holocaust happened bc Eisav soneh et Yaakov (Eisav/Rome hates Yaakov/Israel) than with historians who blame the rapid collapse of the German economy during the Weimer Republic. i'm not anti-metaphysical explanations for bigotry but i don't think they do much in terms of dictating strategy. you think that the conclusion is that we shouldn't waste our time convincing bigots but everyone hates the Other a little bit - no one is free of racism (i thought this was also like a foundational idpol belief???) so we don't really have the luxury of rejecting all bigots.

fwiw I interact with students a lot and some of them definitely take idpol to ludicrous extremes - not at all convinced it's happening at any institutional level tho

theres definitely a subset of people who get off on say believing the exact opposite of everything Lena Dunham says

No one is free of racism isn't to me to idpol is about (its not about any one specific thing to me) - if you are going to be a bigot then you must be rejected. There isn't any place for acting like that in public and it should not be tolerated. xps

no i'm saying that the only way to improve your quality of life in a capitalist society (where the human body is the commodity) is by improving the condition of the commodity. learn a new skill, improve your physical appearance, smooth out the rough bits of your personality

huh? even within your own assumptions here, wouldn't you improve your quality of life by getting that commodity valuated higher? that is, by getting paid more? like by agitating for wage improvements? or demanding other quality-of-life things out of your employer, like health care?

"(tho less and less likely in 2018 that such a thing will succeed) " - er? the fight for 15 comes readily to mind. labor organizing is, if hardly ascendant, certainly active and scrappy and innovative and winning gains in particular workplaces and particular sectors of the economy in ways i don't think it was a decade ago. not to mention active grassroots organizing for things like medicare for all, or even just the huge wave of activity last year to preserve the ACA. these are fights to improve one's quality of life within capitalism. and the thing is that whether they have succeeded yet or not, and as far as self-esteem and sense of control over one's life and so on (the things that self-help gurus presumably step in to provide), i think being involved in these campaigns, having consciousness-raising conversations, realizing it's not just you and you're helping in a a larger fight... this all gives people a sense of meaning, purpose, agency. this is observable i think and not speculative, this is a thing that happens in real life right now.

I literally acknowledged what could motivate bigotry in the two sentences you quoted, Mordy.