the alt-right

I think so but i was also thinking of non-nazis insisting that those readings are definitively wrong

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.

*things

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

i'd argue that, just like with people, if you torture any text enough it will tell you what you want to hear

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

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

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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, March 19, 2019 5:57 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk is this in fact the worst solecism

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

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.

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

lol Brad just let me wave my empty rhetoric around k?

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.

not keen on any sort of transcendent truth or values but coherence is useful as a criteria imo

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

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.

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

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

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.

that's...almost good?

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.)

fuck that asshole

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.

Burn with the rest of them, fuckface

he'll be back w/ the nazis once he can figure out how to monetize it

see also: glenn beck

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

i get a ron paul-like cult vibe from him and his followers

like, he repeats simple ideas and people are attracted to that

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

do you work in a tech corridor

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.

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.

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

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?

yeah not until they gain clout in the party but then lookout

Yang's platform seemed alright to me. Maybe someone itt can explain to me what's wrong with him.

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

I like booker’s idea for savings accounts for children

Wait i thought this was the 2020 thread bc ppl were talking abt yang

Cory Booker is not alt right—for all his faults

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), Wednesday, March 27, 2019 11:14 PM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

don't trust a purportedly reformed Nazi doing a press tour

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

No, they’re libertarians and/or claim ‘independence’

All the ones I know are weird selfish arseholes.

lotta hippies in there as well

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, March 28, 2019 10:46 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah the venn diagram of people who are hippy dippy liberals/leftists into weed, healing crystals, and alternative medicine and anti-vaxxers has a huuuuuuge overlap

The loudest are split pretty evenly between granola libs and homeschool reactionaries IME. Essential oils being another commonality between those two groups.

From what I remember, though, a significant number of anti-vaxxers are poor and POC, people who may not have the strongest, most positive relationship to our healthcare system.

don't bring weed into this. the third thing you're looking for is pressed vegetable juice xp

Scratch a hippie, find a libertarian - or worse. I sometimes work with a hippie who did not vaccinate her daughter and has a Twitter timeline full of YouTube likes for CT videos about Trump saving us all from secret pedo cults in DC. Also voted for Brexit even though she has three French holidays a year.