When did you start vehemently agreeing with Bismark? [/quote]
I’ve always been a realist in terms of International Relations. I think the only difference between Bismark and myself is that I don’t agree with some of the propositions of realism; specifically, that states are essentially rational actors. And the realist proposition that nation states are the most important actors - this proposition overlooks what “the state” actually is. I think the Neo-Gramscians have a far better understanding of power structures and how the “ideological state apparatus” acts as mediator and arbitrator between interest groups. “The state” is best understood not as the institutions of the state but rather as the prevailing ideology of these institutions.
I imagine people would be somewhat surprised to hear that I agree with Neo-Gramscians(Western Marxists) on a number of things. However Western Marxism is actually heretical to traditional Marxism. Traditional Marxism posits that all human conflict can be reduced to class conflict - the haves versus the have nots(historical materialism). Gramsci actually shredded this premise and identified the real sources of power and conflict - specifically, a complex web of overlapping and competing interest groups. That’s why Western Marxists have been so successful. They have successfully harnessed these powers through radical identity politics.
When did you start vehemently agreeing with Bismark? [/quote]
I’ve always been a realist in terms of International Relations. I think the only difference between Bismark and myself is that I don’t agree with some of the propositions of realism; specifically, that states are essentially rational actors. And the realist proposition that nation states are the most important actors - this proposition overlooks what “the state” actually is. I think the Neo-Gramscians have a far better understanding of power structures and how the “ideological state apparatus” acts as mediator and arbitrator between interest groups. “The state” is best understood not as the institutions of the state but rather as the prevailing ideology of these institutions.
I imagine people would be somewhat surprised to hear that I agree with Neo-Gramscians(Western Marxists) on a number of things. However Western Marxism is actually heretical to traditional Marxism. Traditional Marxism posits that all human conflict can be reduced to class conflict - the haves versus the have nots(historical materialism). Gramsci actually shredded this premise and identified the real sources of power and conflict - specifically, a complex web of overlapping and competing interest groups. That’s why Western Marxists have been so successful. They have successfully harnessed these powers through radical identity politics.[/quote]
Holy shit!
You are a tough guy to figure out. Don’t tell me Bolton/Chomsky is your 2016 dream ticket.
When did you start vehemently agreeing with Bismark? [/quote]
I’ve always been a realist in terms of International Relations. I think the only difference between Bismark and myself is that I don’t agree with some of the propositions of realism; specifically, that states are essentially rational actors. And the realist proposition that nation states are the most important actors - this proposition overlooks what “the state” actually is. I think the Neo-Gramscians have a far better understanding of power structures and how the “ideological state apparatus” acts as mediator and arbitrator between interest groups. “The state” is best understood not as the institutions of the state but rather as the prevailing ideology of these institutions.
I imagine people would be somewhat surprised to hear that I agree with Neo-Gramscians(Western Marxists) on a number of things. However Western Marxism is actually heretical to traditional Marxism. Traditional Marxism posits that all human conflict can be reduced to class conflict - the haves versus the have nots(historical materialism). Gramsci actually shredded this premise and identified the real sources of power and conflict - specifically, a complex web of overlapping and competing interest groups. That’s why Western Marxists have been so successful. They have successfully harnessed these powers through radical identity politics.[/quote]
Holy shit!
You are a tough guy to figure out. Don’t tell me Bolton/Chomsky is your 2016 dream ticket.
[/quote]
Ha ha. No, don’t get me wrong. Whilst I agree with Neo-Gramscians on the power structures that underlie the state I don’t share their view that these power structures should be used to undermine the state in order to usher in a classless society. Rather than inflame racial divisions; sex divisions; political divisions etc. I would seek what some call “class collaboration”. I accept that these divisions exist and would seek to have them work together as much as possible and to compete on a level playing field. I wouldn’t seek to abolish divisions in society but rather allow people to transcend race, sex etc. and for a natural hierarchy to develop organically - a meritocracy. Society will always be stratified and hierarchical - a “classless society” is a pipedream. I’d argue for a natural hierarchy based upon merit.
BTW, Neo-Gramscianism is actually a school within International Relations. Whilst I utterly repudiate their objectives(attaining a “classless society”) and their fundamental premises I take very seriously their understanding of power structures and how they relate to the state.
The right has much to learn from Western Marxists and should seek to understand them and turn their tactics against them. This is what the Nouvelle Droite are doing; specifically guys like Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye. Again, I disagree with a lot of what these guys believe but they have been successful to an extent by turning the left upon itself. The most powerful ideological weapons of the left can be used against them.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
BTW, Neo-Gramscianism is actually a school within International Relations. Whilst I utterly repudiate their objectives(attaining a “classless society”) and their fundamental premises I take very seriously their understanding of power structures and how they relate to the state.
The right has much to learn from Western Marxists and should seek to understand them and turn their tactics against them. This is what the Nouvelle Droite are doing; specifically guys like Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye. Again, I disagree with a lot of what these guys believe but they have been successful to an extent by turning the left upon itself. The most powerful ideological weapons of the left can be used against them.[/quote]
My favorite Western Marxist IR work, although I disagree with many of the conclusions reached by the author. Of particular value are the chapters devoted to identity and the construction of danger.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I wouldn’t seek to abolish divisions in society but rather allow people to transcend race, sex etc. and for a natural hierarchy to develop organically - a meritocracy. Society will always be stratified and hierarchical - a “classless society” is a pipedream. I’d argue for a natural hierarchy based upon merit.[/quote]
I also think a meritocracy is the way to go and in your realist sense this is what exists now: some may inherit wealth or position, but they can certainly lose both if not capable of managing their affairs.
I also think a meritocracy is the way to go and in your realist sense this is what exists now: some may inherit wealth or position, but they can certainly lose both if not capable of managing their affairs.
Really how different is it from what we have now?
[/quote]
This is a very complex question and it would take me a long time to articulate how modern liberalism and post-war Anglo-American parliamentary democracy and Continental democratic socialism inhibit meritocracy. I’ll start a thread on this when I have the time. Although I’ve addressed a lot of it already in my posts in PWI from different perspectives.
[quote]
How would you propose implementing this system? [/quote]
I’m actually very reluctant to take a normative or prescriptive approach to politics. Ideas to “fix” broad systemic problems in society always reek of Utopianism to me. I believe that political institutions reflect the culture of society and that the culture needs to be changed before political institutions can be changed. I also have a pessimistic and deterministic view of civilisation. Since the French Revolution the prevailing Anglo-American worldview sees civilisation as following a linear trajectory: that we are moving inexorably “forward” towards a “better world” and that the industrial revolution and the enfranchisement of the masses represent a positive and progressive force and so on.
My worldview is completely different. I see the trajectory of civilisations as a cyclical process and that European Civilisation is in the last stage of its cycle. This is a Greco-Roman worldview which was formalised by Polybius and Cicero as the political model of “anacyclosis”:
Essentially I believe that Western Civilisation is in its death throes. This theme was popular in Germany and to a lesser extent Italy from the last quarter of the 19th Century and was articulated by people like Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West and Julius Evola. These guys tended towards the creation of a new aristocracy in the mould of Nietzsche’s “supermen”. But I’m more pessimistic and see these ideas as just another kind of Utopianism. Basically I don’t see any prospects of reforming the current system; I believe it will need to collapse entirely before anything can be built. In this sense I welcome the “clash of civilisations” as an opportunity to build a new order from the ruins of the ancien regime.
Sorry if I haven’t articulated my position very clearly. This is just a hasty response to a subject that deserves a great deal of time and careful exposition. As I said, I’ll start a thread on this when I get some time.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Basically I don’t see any prospects of reforming the current system; I believe it will need to collapse entirely before anything can be built. In this sense I welcome the “clash of civilisations” as an opportunity to build a new order from the ruins of the ancien regime.
Sorry if I haven’t articulated my position very clearly. This is just a hasty response to a subject that deserves a great deal of time and careful exposition. As I said, I’ll start a thread on this when I get some time.[/quote]
I realize you wrote that this is hasty, but I really don’t understand the above, particularly “I believe it will need to collapse entirely before anything can be built.”
As far as I can tell, making that statement requires you to believe that things can be better, but we cannot achieve it as of now.
But that also seemingly contradicts " I see the trajectory of civilisations as a cyclical process and that European Civilisation is in the last stage of its cycle."
Heck, the very quote above seems contradictory. How can something that is inherently cyclical have a “last stage”? Wouldn’t it simply lead into whatever the next stage is, and in time that will lead to the stage after that, and so on and so forth?
For what its worth, your world-view seems to be something that people in every society says about their time. What makes you think that yours is definitively, actually, right?
I realize you wrote that this is hasty, but I really don’t understand the above, particularly “I believe it will need to collapse entirely before anything can be built.”
[/quote]
It’s pretty straight forward. I believe that Western civilisation cannot be reformed; that it’s doomed; that it pretty much ended with the collapse of the Habsburg, Hohenzollern and Romanov dynasties in The First World War and that the remnants of European civilisation have only managed to “hold out” in a few minor spheres of the political landscape that people today would refer to as “social conservatism” - that “traditionalists” have completely lost the war and are desperately holding out on the last remaining authentic reactionary positions: traditional marriage, pro-life and opposition to radical egalitarianism. The power structures of traditionalism - the church and monarchy/aristocracy - for all intents and purposes no longer exist.
Sigh…sometimes I get the impression that folks are wilfully misunderstanding me. It’s very simple: Western civilisation is finished. The only way Western nation states can “progress” is after the complete collapse of the current order. That would represent the end of the cycle as one civilisation dies and(hopefully) a new civilisation rises from the ashes, eg the annihilation of Mycenaean/Seleucid Greece and the rise of the Roman Empire. I don’t believe that Western civilisation can survive - it must collapse and(hopefully) a new civilisation will arise Phoenix-like from the ashes.
Nope. Not contradictory. See above. My thoughts are analogous to Plutarch’s - a Greek intellectual taken as a slave by the Romans after the defeat of the Greek citystates who realised that Mycenaean Greece was finished as a civilisation and resigned himself its fate; hoping that a new high culture would arise from the ashes of the old.
Sigh…because the cycle is not of a single civilisation rising and falling. The cycle is of civilisations rising and falling: Egypt; rises and falls. Mycenaean Greece rises, falls and then a new civilisation emerges(Rome) which then rises and falls. Carthage; rises and falls. Byzantium; rises and falls; Arab; rises and falls; European rises and falls etc. This is the cycle of civilisations. On average a civilisation generally lasts around a thousand years. And generally it has a cultural apogee or renaissance that lasts about 150 years. The end of the renaissance signals the beginning of the decline.
It follows the pattern I describe above.
[quote]
For what its worth, your world-view seems to be something that people in every society says about their time. What makes you think that yours is definitively, actually, right?[/quote]
My broad view of history gives me the perspective to see the cyclical pattern and recognise where we are currently within the cycle. We’re in the Winter; what Spengler called the “Faustian stage”.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Sigh…sometimes I get the impression that folks are wilfully misunderstanding me.
[/quote]
Na, certainly not. I simply mistook you to mean that Civilization itself is ending. Really silly interpretation on my part, in hindsight.
The entire post was nice, and certainly explains more about your worldview. Thank you. It’s always nice to know more about a genuinely well-read and interesting fellow.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Sigh…sometimes I get the impression that folks are wilfully misunderstanding me.
[/quote]
Na, certainly not. I simply mistook you to mean that Civilization itself is ending. Really silly interpretation on my part, in hindsight.
The entire post was nice, and certainly explains more about your worldview. Thank you. It’s always nice to know more about a genuinely well-read and interesting fellow.
And I agree with a large part of what you wrote.[/quote]
Well thanks. Sorry if I came across as a bit dismissive. A lot of the stuff I read is pretty obscure nowadays so I probably need to explain myself a bit better.
So not even the street dealers are at all culpable for the epidemic that took place?[/quote]
As long as the drug is illegal, the street dealers should be punished for breaking the law that says it’s illegal to sell that substance, as long as that law is on the books.
As far a epidemic is concerned, that rests squarely on the shoulders of those who choose to smoke it. No one held a gun to their heads, and the vast majority of people who smoke it, are reasonable enough to see why its a bad idea (looking at crack heads) before they start doing it.
I get addiction is a hell of a thing, and damn near impossible to beat, however, they had a choice, and they made it. It gets hard to have empathy for them.
So not even the street dealers are at all culpable for the epidemic that took place?[/quote]
As long as the drug is illegal, the street dealers should be punished for breaking the law that says it’s illegal to sell that substance, as long as that law is on the books.
As far a epidemic is concerned, that rests squarely on the shoulders of those who choose to smoke it. No one held a gun to their heads, and the vast majority of people who smoke it, are reasonable enough to see why its a bad idea (looking at crack heads) before they start doing it.
I get addiction is a hell of a thing, and damn near impossible to beat, however, they had a choice, and they made it. It gets hard to have empathy for them. [/quote]
This is a shit attitude.
Say I take a bunch of handguns, and drop them off at a playground at school and the kids start shooting each other. Surely it’s not my fault anybody got shot, they made the choice to play with them.
Amazing thought provoking rebuttal… Let me ponder how profound it is for a moment…
You’ve just broken quite a few federal, state and likely local laws. Congratulations.
Why do you assume this would happen. It isn’t like the firearms shoot themselves. They are inanimate objects. They have no thoughts, no will, no wishes, and can’t operate themselves.
Correct, assuming these kids actually shot the firearms you illegally put there.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
We’ll ignore the litany of logical fallacy your response involves, not excluded to one massive appeal to emotion, for now. [/quote]
The point remains that if you want a system to work, like one designed to prevent drug use, it must be made robust to the human element.
Despite appeals to personal responsibility and any of the various moralistic arguments usually used to place blame on someone else, the system works best if everyone assumes some accountability and puts some skin in the game.
[quote]theuofh wrote:
The point remains that if you want a system to work, like one designed to prevent drug use, it must be made robust to the human element. [/quote]
Well, I’d argue that the Drug War has a lot less to do with curbing drug use, and a lot more to do with a) collecting votes on election day and b) revenue generation and no c) justification for the equipment LEO have now.
Ummm, I’m not the miss placing blame.
In the Op I said those selling are to blame for selling and should be punished. They choose to sell it. In your example I pointed out how you’d end up jammed up pretty good too.
I also pointed out how the people who choose to smoke it are to blame for smoking of crack, and how any of the kids who ue your firearms are to blame for pulling the trigger.
In fact I’m placing blame squarely on the shoulders of the people whom should have it.
Tell me again who wasn’t held accountable for their choices in any of the posts I made? Oh right, not a single actor.
[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:
Foundations are not corporations.
[/quote]
Okay, cool. So the Koch Foundations are not corporations right?
The allegations date back to the Reagan administration. What bearing does that have on anything today?
Uh…yeah? What’s that got to do with anything today? What’s the connection?
So your position is to let law breakers go as long as they work for the C.I.A. and enough time has passed?[/quote]
Er…read my comments again. I didn’t give a “position”. I asked what your point is.[/quote]
My point is painfully obvious and borne out by the information cited. Why is it okay for a government agency to break laws to overthrow another nations democratically elected officials?[/quote]
That’s not a “point” it’s a question. A loaded question. Whose “laws” are you talking about anyway? US law? International law? Nicaraguan law?[/quote]
The Reagan Admin broke U.S. law when they sold arms to the Contras. Also U.S. agencies broke drug laws.
And the U.S. has broken International law more than a few occasions
[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:
Foundations are not corporations.
[/quote]
Okay, cool. So the Koch Foundations are not corporations right?
The allegations date back to the Reagan administration. What bearing does that have on anything today?
Uh…yeah? What’s that got to do with anything today? What’s the connection?
So your position is to let law breakers go as long as they work for the C.I.A. and enough time has passed?[/quote]
Er…read my comments again. I didn’t give a “position”. I asked what your point is.[/quote]
My point is painfully obvious and borne out by the information cited. Why is it okay for a government agency to break laws to overthrow another nations democratically elected officials?[/quote]
That’s not a “point” it’s a question. A loaded question. Whose “laws” are you talking about anyway? US law? International law? Nicaraguan law?[/quote]
The Reagan Admin broke U.S. law when they sold arms to the Contras. Also U.S. agencies broke drug laws.
And the U.S. has broken International law more than a few occasions
[/quote]
Haha. he wrote international law. States must willfully agree to be “bound” by international law, and are free to withdraw from treaties at any time if they conflict with perceived national interests. No central authority exists in the international realm to enforce violations of international agreements. Thuycides was correct when wrote that the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must. Force is the ultima ratio in international relations.