They can't see it because Left is a referential direction.
They are not measuring themselves from an objective point in space, like a principled stance. They are measuring themselves using themselves as an origin point. This means that anything that moves away from them is moving rightward, anything that moves towards them is moving leftward, even if those things aren't moving.
Old physics lesson: You're on a moving train headed north, and I'm watching you go by:
From my reference point, you are moving northward.
From your reference point, I am moving southward.
This is why Leftism is a philosophy of War. There are no principles, only arguments from power. Every position and principle can be Leftist, and many have been, because the only thing that matters is that they move towards whatever their objective happens to be at a given moment. You can move anywhwere in objective space, by always moving left.
“Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well, I have others.” -- Groucho Marx
Actually, Leftists do have principles, they're just very bad principles:
Power above all else
Might makes right
Truth is relative
Perception is reality
The end justifies the means
The reason the Left's position appears to be referential from their POV and rapidly moving from everyone else's point of view is because their principles aren't based on facts about reality or human behavior, they're based on goals.
They could care less about what is right or wrong, or objective truths about the universe... they only care about achieving a specific ends, and if something works in favor of achieving that end, it's by definition "good". Everyone and everything is just a means to achieving an end, and their desired end is inherently good by virtue of who they are, so it follows that anything that helps them achieve that end is naturally good as well.
That's exactly what I mean by a philosophy of War.
It's why I quoted Clausewitz. War's only point is to dominate the will of your opponent. Even the state objectives of belligerents in war are usually irrelevant compared to the domination of your enemy's will.
That is the entire premise of the Left.
Now, like I said, Clausewitz is NOT describing war as a philosophy, because it isn't a philosophy. Leftism is inherently self-destructive because War can't be made into a philosophy. It is simply an action an action.
Even the idea of self-worship is merely just one more rationalizaiton onto the pile. That happens to be Leftism's currentwestern form. It will be discarded in due time when it becomes less tactically useful.
I think this Philosophy of War you mention aligns well with what I believe is the the root driving motivation of the Left: a hatred for existence itself.
This idea began to coalesce for me after hearing a talk by Jordan Peterson:
“They get angry at existence—which is what happened to Cain, as we saw in the Cain and Abel story. And then, the next step is to start taking revenge against existence. That cascades until it’s revenge against—well, I think the best way of thinking about it is revenge against God, for the crime of Being—which is, I think, the deepest sort of hatred that you can entertain.” - Jordan Peterson, “Biblical Series XIII: Jacob’s Ladder”
Of course, I don’t think most Leftists consciously walk around hating everything that exists, but it’s true that everyone has an intuitive moral framework that forms their initial thoughts and beliefs about things (see: Jonathan Haidt), and I think people on the Left have a moral intuition that tells them existence is unfair and filled with suffering, therefore it’s worthy of destruction and thus worthy of waging war against, ideally to recreate it in their image in the end.
People who are motivated primarily by this hatred would think tearing down everything that is true — and therefore worth preserving in our eyes — would actually be a good thing. They would be on the war path against everything real, which pretty much perfectly describes the Left at this point.
The hatred of the world is both the rationalization for why you adopt a Philosophy of War and why you maintain it.
If you feel some great slight against the world, and you feel the only way forward is by taking what you want, then you adopt a philosophy of War.
If, on the other hand, you already have a philosophy of War, then you are putting the entire world as your enemy, within the friend enemy distinction. At that point, there no difference between raging against existence, and declaring everyone to be your enemy.
My only criticism of your analysis is this:
People who are motivated primarily by this hatred
It's a subtle difference, but I think they are primarily motivated by resentment rather than hatred.
I don't reference the spectrum to both left and right because the Left as an entity exists. The right does not. There is no right. There is only Left and Anti-Left, because the Left is a homogeneous philosophy of War, where as all other political philosophies are dedicated towards explicit principles.
This is why Leftists have contained Emperors, Militarists, Social Conservatives, Queer Revolutionaries, Theocrats, Communists, Monarchies, Anarchists, and all of them are prepared to accept that they are Left wing via the assertion that they are fulfilling (what amounts to) a Hegelian Dialectic of power towards some utopia that they all claim they share.
The political "right", as you can see from here, is comprised of Militarists, Libertarians, Theocrats, Monarchists, Anarchists, Minarchists, Liberals, and more... all keeping each other at arms distance, unified only in their opposition to Leftism, which all of us instantly recognize as a bizarre ideological collective that can take any policy position, rationalize it, and declare it to be Leftist/Revolutionary/Progressive/Modern/Enlightened despite it being a) already a right-wing principle, or b) in direct opposition to current or previously asserted principles.
We aren't in "solidarity" with one another. We just all know that we are all under attack by a purely malevolent force that demands we surrender or die. We don't share a history, lineage, or even moral foundation. The left shares a constantly shifting meta-narrative that is just rationalized for more power.
An objective reference scale based on policies and principles would see all "Rightist" positions generally be stagnant or orbit around specific points. A Leftist ideology will literally move from any point in objective space to another, simply depending upon time or even local political location. They hold no objective positions. All positions are held only for their tactical benefit to a Leftist at a given time and place.
I think it was all made up by Fabians to say right-wing is Hitler and everything else is "not-Hitler". I know about the French origins of the spectrum and commies always attack their enemies as right-reactionary but it got more popular at ww2.
Not just the Fabians. All Leftists do it. The Fascists were declared to be "Right Wing" by the Internationalist Communists when Mussolini basically told them that nationalism (which was a progressive and anti-monarchical & anti-colonial movement) was the basis on which further socialist actions needed to take place. All of Fascism and National Socialism is based on Leftist economic policies, particularly Syndicalism and Corporatism.
The internationalist socialists were so fucking stubborn in believing that the Proletariat would just entirely reverse course on enlisting in World War 1, that they were only moments away from the world-wide communist revolution taking place. Mussolini wasn't the only person who called them fucking retarded. So did Lenin, and for the exact same reason. The revolution wasn't just going to magically happen, so Lenin would cause it. Again, he was attacked by Socialists in central Europe for being delusional enough to think that he could have a communist revolution in a country as under-developed as Russia. Marx said that it could only happen post capitalism, so therefore, Marx is God, and Lennin is an idiot. ... and then he destroyed the entire Russian empire within a few years and formed the world's first (and most powerful) Communist state.
Lenin battled with the Socialists, particularly the intellectuals, for years until he basically crushed all dissent within Russia.
Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party of Germany who was busy condemning both of them, nearly destroyed their entire economy, had to get (what amounted to) a Libertarian to recover the economy, pledged to basically burn down the economy again, and were immediately replaced by National Socialists.
The Socialists keep proving themselves wrong, refuse to listen, and then label everyone who disagrees with them, even the Leftists who disagree with them, Fascist. That's all a Fascist ever was: a Leftist who disagreed with a Leftist Establishment.
In fact, when George Orwell was serving in Spain, fighting for the Democratic Socialists, the Communists tried to have him arrested for being a: Trotskyite Fascist. ... because Stalin declared Trotsky to be a Fascist.
I’ve always hated that label. It’s so dishonest. Leftists aggressively and violently react to the “status quo” aka our evolved behaviors and institutions, and yet leftists want to frame their enemies as the ones who are “reacting”. I guess the man who responds to the assault on his home is the “reactionary”.
Not really- they're good at changing the definition of words until they win and conservatives are horrible at denying the change because all they can conserve is the slow decline into clown world.
Fair point. I thought you were referring to their ability to pull new word salads out their ass and pretend like they've said something profoundly academic- like how pedos are now Non-Offending Minor-Attracted Persons (No-MAP). They certainly know how to re-market awful ideas so they sound palatable at surface level.
Sure, they've managed to subvert the dictionary definitions, but all that's really done is make dictionaries inaccurate. Since most people are unaware of the culture war or how deep it goes, racism will remain racism and not "prejudice + power" until there is a significant shift in the zeitgeist.
I still have hope that the only reason they've been able to make it so far is because people just aren't aware. We've been seeing signs of the pendulum swinging the other way- they abused the social power of offence so much that it's losing its effectiveness. We can only hope enough of the population wakes up sooner rather than later.
Well, preaching ranting to the choir, but got to scream into the void somewhere. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
They definitely do, they just don't want you to know that the shift is entirely manufactured. The overton window has shifted a lot in just a few years, but I feel they've been rushing it lately as resistance has started growing. Bit of a vicious cycle where they want to make the change before the narrative collapse, but rushing speeds up the collapse and thus makes the change more urgent and so on.
They have a whole built up narrative of the right moving further right. They have articles and papers and everything. They have a paper with a chart showing Trump to the far right of Eisenhower and Obama only slightly further left than JFK. While Eisenhower was a centrist for the time I'm fairly sure on any issue besides corporate taxes he'd be to the right of Trump (and even then Eisenhower was in favor of high corporate taxes because he was radically anti-debt).
That's one reason it is so hard to even communicate with people on the left. For any angle you take there is an entire ecosystem creating a counter narrative.
Their faith is so strong that mere facts cannot shake it. African Migrant Man Bad, so decrees their priests and vicars, and that's all they need to know. All further information will be distorted through that lens.
the left has very poor self reflection skills.. they think everyone else is a problem. that they are "woke" genius and that people dont understand their genius.
the left used to represent or at least pretend to represent the blue collar workers.. the people that make up the bulk of a functioning society. nowadays.. they represent extreme fringe and making sure hteir policies include or take account of the extreme fringe. Sure fringe should always have a voice that should be considered when appropriate, but it should never be the main point of a decision that affects EVERYONE ELSE.
This is exactly what I've been saying!
They can't see it because Left is a referential direction.
They are not measuring themselves from an objective point in space, like a principled stance. They are measuring themselves using themselves as an origin point. This means that anything that moves away from them is moving rightward, anything that moves towards them is moving leftward, even if those things aren't moving.
Old physics lesson: You're on a moving train headed north, and I'm watching you go by:
This is why Leftism is a philosophy of War. There are no principles, only arguments from power. Every position and principle can be Leftist, and many have been, because the only thing that matters is that they move towards whatever their objective happens to be at a given moment. You can move anywhwere in objective space, by always moving left.
Leftism reminds me of a quote:
Actually, Leftists do have principles, they're just very bad principles:
The reason the Left's position appears to be referential from their POV and rapidly moving from everyone else's point of view is because their principles aren't based on facts about reality or human behavior, they're based on goals.
They could care less about what is right or wrong, or objective truths about the universe... they only care about achieving a specific ends, and if something works in favor of achieving that end, it's by definition "good". Everyone and everything is just a means to achieving an end, and their desired end is inherently good by virtue of who they are, so it follows that anything that helps them achieve that end is naturally good as well.
It's the ultimate manifestation of self-worship.
EDIT: Added some more.
That's exactly what I mean by a philosophy of War.
It's why I quoted Clausewitz. War's only point is to dominate the will of your opponent. Even the state objectives of belligerents in war are usually irrelevant compared to the domination of your enemy's will.
That is the entire premise of the Left.
Now, like I said, Clausewitz is NOT describing war as a philosophy, because it isn't a philosophy. Leftism is inherently self-destructive because War can't be made into a philosophy. It is simply an action an action.
Even the idea of self-worship is merely just one more rationalizaiton onto the pile. That happens to be Leftism's current western form. It will be discarded in due time when it becomes less tactically useful.
I think this Philosophy of War you mention aligns well with what I believe is the the root driving motivation of the Left: a hatred for existence itself.
This idea began to coalesce for me after hearing a talk by Jordan Peterson:
Of course, I don’t think most Leftists consciously walk around hating everything that exists, but it’s true that everyone has an intuitive moral framework that forms their initial thoughts and beliefs about things (see: Jonathan Haidt), and I think people on the Left have a moral intuition that tells them existence is unfair and filled with suffering, therefore it’s worthy of destruction and thus worthy of waging war against, ideally to recreate it in their image in the end.
People who are motivated primarily by this hatred would think tearing down everything that is true — and therefore worth preserving in our eyes — would actually be a good thing. They would be on the war path against everything real, which pretty much perfectly describes the Left at this point.
The hatred of the world is both the rationalization for why you adopt a Philosophy of War and why you maintain it.
If you feel some great slight against the world, and you feel the only way forward is by taking what you want, then you adopt a philosophy of War.
If, on the other hand, you already have a philosophy of War, then you are putting the entire world as your enemy, within the friend enemy distinction. At that point, there no difference between raging against existence, and declaring everyone to be your enemy.
My only criticism of your analysis is this:
It's a subtle difference, but I think they are primarily motivated by resentment rather than hatred.
cuckservatives: yes, but imagine if our side said the same thing but with the race reversed 🤯
Thanks.
I don't reference the spectrum to both left and right because the Left as an entity exists. The right does not. There is no right. There is only Left and Anti-Left, because the Left is a homogeneous philosophy of War, where as all other political philosophies are dedicated towards explicit principles.
This is why Leftists have contained Emperors, Militarists, Social Conservatives, Queer Revolutionaries, Theocrats, Communists, Monarchies, Anarchists, and all of them are prepared to accept that they are Left wing via the assertion that they are fulfilling (what amounts to) a Hegelian Dialectic of power towards some utopia that they all claim they share.
The political "right", as you can see from here, is comprised of Militarists, Libertarians, Theocrats, Monarchists, Anarchists, Minarchists, Liberals, and more... all keeping each other at arms distance, unified only in their opposition to Leftism, which all of us instantly recognize as a bizarre ideological collective that can take any policy position, rationalize it, and declare it to be Leftist/Revolutionary/Progressive/Modern/Enlightened despite it being a) already a right-wing principle, or b) in direct opposition to current or previously asserted principles.
We aren't in "solidarity" with one another. We just all know that we are all under attack by a purely malevolent force that demands we surrender or die. We don't share a history, lineage, or even moral foundation. The left shares a constantly shifting meta-narrative that is just rationalized for more power.
An objective reference scale based on policies and principles would see all "Rightist" positions generally be stagnant or orbit around specific points. A Leftist ideology will literally move from any point in objective space to another, simply depending upon time or even local political location. They hold no objective positions. All positions are held only for their tactical benefit to a Leftist at a given time and place.
What I'm saying is even more significant than that. The whole spectrum itself is false, and an invention of the Left.
I think it was all made up by Fabians to say right-wing is Hitler and everything else is "not-Hitler". I know about the French origins of the spectrum and commies always attack their enemies as right-reactionary but it got more popular at ww2.
Not just the Fabians. All Leftists do it. The Fascists were declared to be "Right Wing" by the Internationalist Communists when Mussolini basically told them that nationalism (which was a progressive and anti-monarchical & anti-colonial movement) was the basis on which further socialist actions needed to take place. All of Fascism and National Socialism is based on Leftist economic policies, particularly Syndicalism and Corporatism.
The internationalist socialists were so fucking stubborn in believing that the Proletariat would just entirely reverse course on enlisting in World War 1, that they were only moments away from the world-wide communist revolution taking place. Mussolini wasn't the only person who called them fucking retarded. So did Lenin, and for the exact same reason. The revolution wasn't just going to magically happen, so Lenin would cause it. Again, he was attacked by Socialists in central Europe for being delusional enough to think that he could have a communist revolution in a country as under-developed as Russia. Marx said that it could only happen post capitalism, so therefore, Marx is God, and Lennin is an idiot. ... and then he destroyed the entire Russian empire within a few years and formed the world's first (and most powerful) Communist state.
Lenin battled with the Socialists, particularly the intellectuals, for years until he basically crushed all dissent within Russia.
Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party of Germany who was busy condemning both of them, nearly destroyed their entire economy, had to get (what amounted to) a Libertarian to recover the economy, pledged to basically burn down the economy again, and were immediately replaced by National Socialists.
The Socialists keep proving themselves wrong, refuse to listen, and then label everyone who disagrees with them, even the Leftists who disagree with them, Fascist. That's all a Fascist ever was: a Leftist who disagreed with a Leftist Establishment.
In fact, when George Orwell was serving in Spain, fighting for the Democratic Socialists, the Communists tried to have him arrested for being a: Trotskyite Fascist. ... because Stalin declared Trotsky to be a Fascist.
It'd be great if it was true that Musk had run off the right edge after encountering the left. That's how a lot of people become reactionaries.
I’ve always hated that label. It’s so dishonest. Leftists aggressively and violently react to the “status quo” aka our evolved behaviors and institutions, and yet leftists want to frame their enemies as the ones who are “reacting”. I guess the man who responds to the assault on his home is the “reactionary”.
Not really- they're good at changing the definition of words until they win and conservatives are horrible at denying the change because all they can conserve is the slow decline into clown world.
Fair point. I thought you were referring to their ability to pull new word salads out their ass and pretend like they've said something profoundly academic- like how pedos are now Non-Offending Minor-Attracted Persons (No-MAP). They certainly know how to re-market awful ideas so they sound palatable at surface level.
Sure, they've managed to subvert the dictionary definitions, but all that's really done is make dictionaries inaccurate. Since most people are unaware of the culture war or how deep it goes, racism will remain racism and not "prejudice + power" until there is a significant shift in the zeitgeist.
I still have hope that the only reason they've been able to make it so far is because people just aren't aware. We've been seeing signs of the pendulum swinging the other way- they abused the social power of offence so much that it's losing its effectiveness. We can only hope enough of the population wakes up sooner rather than later.
Well,
preachingranting to the choir, but got to scream into the void somewhere. ¯_(ツ)_/¯They definitely do, they just don't want you to know that the shift is entirely manufactured. The overton window has shifted a lot in just a few years, but I feel they've been rushing it lately as resistance has started growing. Bit of a vicious cycle where they want to make the change before the narrative collapse, but rushing speeds up the collapse and thus makes the change more urgent and so on.
True this version is way better
Many such cases
As if that mattered for the people that read that shite
He's just making the same observation about the left that could have been made at any point during the last 60 years
They have a whole built up narrative of the right moving further right. They have articles and papers and everything. They have a paper with a chart showing Trump to the far right of Eisenhower and Obama only slightly further left than JFK. While Eisenhower was a centrist for the time I'm fairly sure on any issue besides corporate taxes he'd be to the right of Trump (and even then Eisenhower was in favor of high corporate taxes because he was radically anti-debt).
That's one reason it is so hard to even communicate with people on the left. For any angle you take there is an entire ecosystem creating a counter narrative.
/begins to walk to the Left and nudges a window frame laying idle on the ground
"Look! The others are moving Right!"
/starts jogging and kicks the window frame a few times
"Look! They're moving more quickly to the Right now!"
/full on sprints while dragging the window frame
"LOOK
at me! They've gone full on Far-right with how far Right they now are!"Annual Pew research surveys show the left did indeed move far left :
https://twitter.com/msmelchen/status/1519952493580480512?s=21
Their faith is so strong that mere facts cannot shake it. African Migrant Man Bad, so decrees their priests and vicars, and that's all they need to know. All further information will be distorted through that lens.
I love the lol at the last line.
Heres the problem with the left.
The left always see the right as racists. They saw them racist then they see them racist now. The right never changed.
The left.. however.. went from poor people to illegals to muslims to gays to trannies and eventually pedos and god knows what else.
The left becomes woker and woker while the right stays the same with its "racism".
the left has very poor self reflection skills.. they think everyone else is a problem. that they are "woke" genius and that people dont understand their genius.
the left used to represent or at least pretend to represent the blue collar workers.. the people that make up the bulk of a functioning society. nowadays.. they represent extreme fringe and making sure hteir policies include or take account of the extreme fringe. Sure fringe should always have a voice that should be considered when appropriate, but it should never be the main point of a decision that affects EVERYONE ELSE.
This is me except for every step the lib took left I took one right