This is semantics, but I'm curious what you think of this Lotus Eaters talk and Sargon's recent tweet "Communism isn't separate from liberalism, imo." and the resulting slapfight with James Lindsay. Carl admitted he was exaggerating to trigger a debate, but Lindsay (who also makes good content) comes across as the unhinged extremist. Regardless of who is right, I thought it inspired some interesting conversation with the guest in this segment and they provided good starting points for further research.
I considered posting it for discussion but was too lazy to summarize the important quotes so I didn't bother. It amuses me how Carl has gradually changed his opinions and moved towards the right while people like Lindsay seem mired in ideology and refuse to yield any ground in their beliefs.
Carl isn't wrong he just wasn't being nuanced enough for someone who is clearly reacting in a nonsense way. The other two members of Sokal Squared are behaving like children.
My problem with Carl's analysis is that it relies on the assumption that if you take an ideology to it's logical extremes, it will be fucking insanity. This is basically true of all ideologies, and in all times, and in all conditions; because it's basically Goodell's Incompleteness Theorem. Any logical system can either be complete (to cover all things) or consistent (to give repeated outcomes). No logical system can do both. It is a fundamental problem with logic in and of itself. Even math is not exempt, and we used math to prove it.
My problem with how he's looking at it is that he's tolerating Rousseau (which he shouldn't), and then pre-supposing that a Liberal order "loses" to all Leftist orders because they "don't fulfil the promises of Liberalism".
While it is true that Liberalism seeks liberty, egality, and fraternity; we have to accept that Liberalism has boundary conditions. One of those things is (for example) reality. Rousseau actually rejects this. Well, that's fucking wrong. His ideas can be thrown away right at that point. I also understand that Locke has limitations, since he believed in Tabula Rasa. But again, this is the point. We have to recognize that the boundary conditions of Liberalism must be set by observable reality.
Leftism, and by definition Communism, is an evil shadow-version of Liberalism which claims to guarantee the promises of Liberalism by literally killing everyone and everything in their quest for utopia.
This should make sense to everyone if they are being honest, because every system has these 'evil shadow versions'. The shadow of Monarchism is autocracy. The shadow of Nationalism is a hermit-kingdom. The shadow of Christian Nationalism would be Divine Command Autocracy. The shadow of Libertarianism is PvP. The shadow of traditionalism is an unthinking appeal to ignorance.
I know a lot of the right likes traditionalism, but Carl himself made a video series entirely on: "All Cultures Are Beautiful". Most of the cultures he went over were people who were insane savages who developed traditions that we would consider evil. Whether it's the burning of widows alive, or horrific things being done to children, or human sacrifice... tradition is not necessarily enough on it's own. Everything has a shadow when you don't test it, or take it to extremes.
Unlike Connor, Neema Parvini, and the rest of the reactionary right; that doesn't mean we criminalize Liberalism and eliminate individual freedom. Liberalism will have to get replaced because it's axioms are false, but the majority of it works fine when applied against a state, by a people with a strong moral sentiment, a nationalistic mindset, and a desire to take individual responsibility. Liberalism responsibly, and we'll squeeze some more decades out of it.
Communism is downstream of liberalism. Carl Benjamin describes this better than I can so I'll just link the video here. (It's in the first few minutes of the stream.)
Liberalism is not ever meant to destroy nationhood. If anything, it serves as a mechanism to unify a nation against the oppression of a state. Liberal Nationalism also exists, and was very common in the 19th century. Nationalism itself stems from Liberal pre-suppositions about self-government.
Civic Nationalism does occur within Liberalism, but it is never a requirement.
Communism doesn't tolerate anything outside of Communism. It can, at best, use national identity as a human shield (like Stalin, Tito, and Ceausescu did)
Literally antithetical to one another, but okay.
This is semantics, but I'm curious what you think of this Lotus Eaters talk and Sargon's recent tweet "Communism isn't separate from liberalism, imo." and the resulting slapfight with James Lindsay. Carl admitted he was exaggerating to trigger a debate, but Lindsay (who also makes good content) comes across as the unhinged extremist. Regardless of who is right, I thought it inspired some interesting conversation with the guest in this segment and they provided good starting points for further research.
I considered posting it for discussion but was too lazy to summarize the important quotes so I didn't bother. It amuses me how Carl has gradually changed his opinions and moved towards the right while people like Lindsay seem mired in ideology and refuse to yield any ground in their beliefs.
Carl isn't wrong he just wasn't being nuanced enough for someone who is clearly reacting in a nonsense way. The other two members of Sokal Squared are behaving like children.
My problem with Carl's analysis is that it relies on the assumption that if you take an ideology to it's logical extremes, it will be fucking insanity. This is basically true of all ideologies, and in all times, and in all conditions; because it's basically Goodell's Incompleteness Theorem. Any logical system can either be complete (to cover all things) or consistent (to give repeated outcomes). No logical system can do both. It is a fundamental problem with logic in and of itself. Even math is not exempt, and we used math to prove it.
My problem with how he's looking at it is that he's tolerating Rousseau (which he shouldn't), and then pre-supposing that a Liberal order "loses" to all Leftist orders because they "don't fulfil the promises of Liberalism".
While it is true that Liberalism seeks liberty, egality, and fraternity; we have to accept that Liberalism has boundary conditions. One of those things is (for example) reality. Rousseau actually rejects this. Well, that's fucking wrong. His ideas can be thrown away right at that point. I also understand that Locke has limitations, since he believed in Tabula Rasa. But again, this is the point. We have to recognize that the boundary conditions of Liberalism must be set by observable reality.
Leftism, and by definition Communism, is an evil shadow-version of Liberalism which claims to guarantee the promises of Liberalism by literally killing everyone and everything in their quest for utopia.
This should make sense to everyone if they are being honest, because every system has these 'evil shadow versions'. The shadow of Monarchism is autocracy. The shadow of Nationalism is a hermit-kingdom. The shadow of Christian Nationalism would be Divine Command Autocracy. The shadow of Libertarianism is PvP. The shadow of traditionalism is an unthinking appeal to ignorance.
I know a lot of the right likes traditionalism, but Carl himself made a video series entirely on: "All Cultures Are Beautiful". Most of the cultures he went over were people who were insane savages who developed traditions that we would consider evil. Whether it's the burning of widows alive, or horrific things being done to children, or human sacrifice... tradition is not necessarily enough on it's own. Everything has a shadow when you don't test it, or take it to extremes.
Unlike Connor, Neema Parvini, and the rest of the reactionary right; that doesn't mean we criminalize Liberalism and eliminate individual freedom. Liberalism will have to get replaced because it's axioms are false, but the majority of it works fine when applied against a state, by a people with a strong moral sentiment, a nationalistic mindset, and a desire to take individual responsibility. Liberalism responsibly, and we'll squeeze some more decades out of it.
Communism is downstream of liberalism. Carl Benjamin describes this better than I can so I'll just link the video here. (It's in the first few minutes of the stream.)
I know the argument. I'm saying he's wrong because you don't carry Liberalism downstream to the point you go off the waterfall.
Liberalism is not ever meant to destroy nationhood. If anything, it serves as a mechanism to unify a nation against the oppression of a state. Liberal Nationalism also exists, and was very common in the 19th century. Nationalism itself stems from Liberal pre-suppositions about self-government.
Civic Nationalism does occur within Liberalism, but it is never a requirement.
Communism doesn't tolerate anything outside of Communism. It can, at best, use national identity as a human shield (like Stalin, Tito, and Ceausescu did)
And yet here we are. It has (and continues) to produce exactly this result.
'The result is the purpose' as a wise man once said.
That's because Socialism is what we live under. Liberalism has been beaten down in America since Warren G Harding left office.
Civic Nationalism is independent to both Liberalism and Communism.
Liberalism puts the founding population first.