Tag Archives: Culture Wars

What does each side want? #Charlottesville

Is this accurate:

Much of the alt-right wants separation (as Malcom X advocated). They perceive other groups as behaving parasitically or with hostility.

How about the left? What do they want?

They are Marxists, or under the sway of Marxists. They see the history of the world in terms of class struggle. Unlike 100 years ago, today’s classes are ethnic/gender classes (as opposed to economic). They perceive the world as a struggle between oppressors and oppressed.

So what do they want?

To destroy the classes of people who they deem to be oppressors?

Is that it?

Comments welcome.

Edit. I suppose you can also say that left wants what they always ask for: “MORE!” But what is the long-term ideal toward which they think they’re working.

A liberal friend lamenting the loss of economic concerns in the Democratic party

The host is arguing that today’s political figures are race hustling and ignoring economic projects and programs.

But isn’t this the macro picture of what happened over the course of the last few years? Cultural Marxism has replaced Economic Marxism?

Instead of telling the history of the world in terms of proletariat versus bourgeoisies (economic class warfare), it is women, gays and darker skinned races against straight white men (cultural class warfare).

From my vantage point you’ve been left behind as a proponent of a philosophy which has a long history of radicalizing extremely quickly and leaving its moderates behind, if not declaring them enemies.

Moderate leftists who think they are victims, for example, economic victims, very quickly find out that the aren’t victim *enough*. People who are bigger victims than you quickly push you aside and claim to possess a superior moral position because they are superior victims.

Anyway. I will avoid an argument. Feel free to tell me why I’m wrong.

BBC’s “Ancient Roman diversity” meme is proof we are living in a dark age.

medium.com/incerto/something-is-broken-in-the-uk-intellectual-sphere-7efc9a1f154a

Representativeness heuristic. The picture was portrayed as representative (playing on the representativeness/availability heuristic in the minds of children). Some people backtracked later by saying it is was not common but not impossible, which is where I shout “BS!”
Anecdotal vs Statistical. The backup is mostly anecdotal from cherry picked stories. We find nothing beyond traces of sub-Saharan genes in areas where Roman legions were located (France, Gaul, and even Spain, where most of it came much later from the Arab trade). Show the picture to a French or Italian person and tell him “this is the typical…” and wait for the insults.
Fuzzy classification. Even the researchers who deal with physical remains miss the point that people from North Africa looked no different from Spaniards, S. Italians, and Greeks. Punics/Phoenicians we now know, looked Canaanite, just like Southern Europeans. Berbers looked like mountain berbers today. So representing “diversity” should focus on the difference between locals and Romans (Northern European vs Mediterranean), not within Romans (in other words, Butter vs Olive Oil ). It would be like mixing English and Spaniards/S. Italians, which makes sense. But it doesn’t work: Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Sicily are in the EU, so the other needs to be something else. (Contradicts the anti-Brexit… African is not a phenotype, but some rough geographic delimitation)
The reclassification “when it fits” is nothing short of fabrication.
The UK political correctness mob. Britain perfected the scholar with “f*** you money”, but today’s typical U.K. academic is a wuss, with a renewable 5 year contract, and, like the middle class, in a state of insecurity and constant fear of being caught breaking rules. They are very vulnerable to the slightest accusation (recall the Tim Hunt affair where a Nobel winner was summarily fired because of a confusing joke, with no chance of explaining what he meant). So there is a set system to terrorize people who divert via public flogging or even burning at the stake: for instance David Colquhoun, a morally depraved man who serves as attack dog to terrorize people and raise mobs can only exist in the U.K. Like an inquisitor, he accuses you of sorcery and now all bets are off. He makes sure nobody reads your papers. He did it to Tim Hunt & others.
My Case: In my case “feminists” were upset that I could disagree with a woman (I should not treat a woman as I would a man, yet they manage to find no contradiction.) So they used the excuse that I call Mary Beard Ms Beard simply because I will never call a historian with a PhD “Doctor”, particulary if the person, like Ms Beard has shown evidence of being a BS vendor (I only call medical doctors doctors). That was sufficient to trigger the inquisition (they could not use my contradicting a woman as official grounds for that). But note that I can’t be affected by what IYIs (intellectuals like idiots) in the UK or elsewhere think; neither my book sales, nor my business activities seem to be affected by IYIs. Actually, my book sales increase upon attacks by IYIs.
I am certain that had I called Mary Beard “Professor Doctor Beard”, they would have found something else that was “chauvinist”, perhaps the length of my sentences, etc.
The US. We believe here in America in freedom of expression far more than in other fuzzier notions such as justice, equity, etc. Freedom is vastly more robust than other notions and shields us from inquisitors such as David Colquhoun. Europe and Canada are in trouble.