who covers a lot of ground: Shapiro seems rather strong when it comes to articulating that idea of personal responsibility but his satanization of the economic left (e.g. Bernie Sanders) seems forced and unreasonable and Klein sorta "owns" him when it comes to pointing out that many of Trump and Vance's policies and viewpoints are examples of the envy and resentment-based "scavenger" thinking that Shaprio discusses in a dehumanizing way.
Shapiro's attempt to foreclose any difference on economic issues is mirrored, I think, by a certain wish on the left to foreclose difference on cultural issues. One one hand there is an axis that runs through Trotskyites to centrists like Klein who would like to shut down the culture wars because as soon as the culture wars started we started losing [1] [2] but the leftist who enjoys the culture wars is more inclined to satanize the "christofascist" as opposed to the likes of Milton Freedman [3]
There's a tendency on the right to say there is an "objective" reality (the Bible, Ayn Rand's philosophy) whereas Marxism leads you to see there are "two sides" to any issue. It gets the left in no end of trouble thinking about Blacks because if you go talk to Black people you will find they really do see things differently from white people in the aggregate but that they also see things differently from one another.
So like Rhett Butler or Han Solo if I'm asked to take a side on something like "cancel culture" I'm going to say "my side". I'm sure someone got canceled who deserved it and someone got canceled who didn't deserve it. There is no "due process" but there's also a feeling (see Klein) that due process is as much a problem as it is a solution. I sure as hell hate the "debate" over it.
[1] that theory would say that Reagan's economic policies didn't have any appeal to a mass base
[2] to be fair, almost always white male although sometimes gay
[3] and it's a credit to the rise of financialization: when I grew up I learned the financial advice that if I take care of my bank account my credit score will take care of itself; the paradigm for financial advise on both the internet and in magazines has been "(1) stop people from stealing your identity, and (2) use this one weird trick to raise your FICO score" since 2010 -- leftists once might have cared about labor, opportunity, taxes and such, today they care about insurance (e.g. health insurance) and credit (student loans). The idea that you might have your own money to spend on something you want to spend it on is right out of the 1950s like the stay at hom emome.
Ah, here was a great place to substitute your coinage "identarian"-- Ime I can't distinguish the identarians who enjoy the culture wars in terms of left from right (unless we equate right with white, & that's something we have to amicably agree to disagree :) one could forgiveably id the killer of Kirk as a right-identarian, eg, but that still feels less correct than simply "identarian" (normal folks would not resort to moderately planned violence).. you can see by the shell engravings TR sort of took pleasure in the planning vs Luigi..
(Yes, in other words, the economic left, or more precisely the nonpractising left, was too welcoming of identarians in precisely the same way the churchgoing center wasnt- 1970s to mid 1980s)
Now as for "leftist" in [3] I'd assume you mean "what passes for a classic leftist (like Bernie & 2000s Paul) amongst the millennials/gen z". More to say here, insurance over taxes is imho the correct Marxist valuation.. ? After all "from each according to his ability etc etc" is a succinct description of insurance
>due process is as much a problem as it is a solution
Now this is an interesting take, well, I can see Klein saying it in exasperation (in the podcast-to-be-read-- thanks!), but what is your emotional-valence here? (I can guess, but the guess would be more intricate than I can jot down from the hip :)
A mini-shot though.. if one truly enjoys hard work, problems would be as much of a joy as solutions. Centrists (like PG and "functional" Grothendieck) would be careful to tolerate schlep without seeing value in labor-in-itself.. schizos right+epsilon of center, or stoics* left+epsilon a-ways.. however..
*I would substitute "epicureans" here, but "stoics" would do fine for pedantry
I can't approve completely of his appropriate of dynamical systems theory but the idea that Kirk was "killed by memes" appeals to me as does Fred's description of these as "brainrot". People on the right are likely to see some transfurry in there [1] whereas left-leaning women are going to see anything coded young male as right wing. The FBI profile of the postmodern shooter is that he had a copy of The Communist Manifesto but he kept up his neighbors listening to Rush (the Canadian band) and people will make what they want of it.
As for Klein and due process I can say I am very frustrated not least because due process is frustrating but because we're in a dilemma because the alternatives are worse. (I can see how Curtis Yarvin's crypto-degrowth philosophy of "just wait until the dieoff and we can go back to solar-economy feudalism" could appeal to some) Of course that frustration with due process is the subject of his recent book Abundance which I have ambiguous feelings about: part of me wants to believe it, but I think it is a tough sell to many people who see it as warmed over neoliberalism [3] who think rent control is a good idea, like the populism of Matt Stoller, never mind this sort of usually unstated issue
as it is people will complain that somebody else complains about not being safe downtown while they (1) live a hikkiomori lifestyle or (2) live in the suburbs and/or order a private taxi for their burrito instead of going to a restaurant.
[1] my take though is furries are even-headed, as a committed kemonomimi [2] I always trying to bait them based on their bad taste in art
[3] "but wait... we're not talking liberating the private sector from the government, we're talking about liberating the government from the government!"
[1] Ime transfurries even more so (tho I'm not clued enough in art history to comment on their aesthetic merits)
Thanks for the Klein pointers, I see the sections on rent are precisely what I require to formulate copy for an insurance-market-based ad to thoughtful Marxists :) TODO-- close-read those with a postulate that Klein has read & wrestled with late era Jacobs
Decarlos Brown is someone I'd ID as right-identarian & more specifically that kind of center-right+epsilon schizo I was hinting at (if I put myself in a Martian's shoes)
But reflecting on that with FredDeBoer freshly paged in: the left-identarians (predominantly women plus a smattering of depressive gays who haven't mustered the courage to experiment with hormone replacement therapy)
Just do a better job of publicly suppressing their glee vizavis less emotionally adroit young cis-males, black or white
Hikkikomori culture in the US is only barely an appropriation-- I'm sure the HKs in ah Saitama dont get distracted by young women loitering in the backstreets of Shibuya/Shinjuku: rather it's the superior habits in moral hygiene (outsiders would say it's indoctrination, but why then would the mtgow-equivalent in Tokyo proper not succeed?)
Got to the part where Ezra says he will have his kids read Shapiros neo-Randian fairytale lol.
Yep this is the disingenuity. If i were Ezra I'd have rehearsed with a unrepentant Randian 10x to come up with something more aggressive.
Dems will get that he's weaseling, but Republicans will have it go over their heads.. Mamdani-style listening would be marginally better; to throw Shapiros phrase back at him, it's the "praise" that he pretends not to notice that should be the most concerning
Self-help for Shapiros would not be writing Randian "bronze-age" fairytales (self-help as practiced by "narcissist by nurture" trivially succumbs to Kohutese infernos), but to get as far away from Rand and the Iron Age as sanely possible. (but that'd require some hormonal injections or dissociative research substances ?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAqG00FUOK8
who covers a lot of ground: Shapiro seems rather strong when it comes to articulating that idea of personal responsibility but his satanization of the economic left (e.g. Bernie Sanders) seems forced and unreasonable and Klein sorta "owns" him when it comes to pointing out that many of Trump and Vance's policies and viewpoints are examples of the envy and resentment-based "scavenger" thinking that Shaprio discusses in a dehumanizing way.
Shapiro's attempt to foreclose any difference on economic issues is mirrored, I think, by a certain wish on the left to foreclose difference on cultural issues. One one hand there is an axis that runs through Trotskyites to centrists like Klein who would like to shut down the culture wars because as soon as the culture wars started we started losing [1] [2] but the leftist who enjoys the culture wars is more inclined to satanize the "christofascist" as opposed to the likes of Milton Freedman [3]
There's a tendency on the right to say there is an "objective" reality (the Bible, Ayn Rand's philosophy) whereas Marxism leads you to see there are "two sides" to any issue. It gets the left in no end of trouble thinking about Blacks because if you go talk to Black people you will find they really do see things differently from white people in the aggregate but that they also see things differently from one another.
So like Rhett Butler or Han Solo if I'm asked to take a side on something like "cancel culture" I'm going to say "my side". I'm sure someone got canceled who deserved it and someone got canceled who didn't deserve it. There is no "due process" but there's also a feeling (see Klein) that due process is as much a problem as it is a solution. I sure as hell hate the "debate" over it.
[1] that theory would say that Reagan's economic policies didn't have any appeal to a mass base
[2] to be fair, almost always white male although sometimes gay
[3] and it's a credit to the rise of financialization: when I grew up I learned the financial advice that if I take care of my bank account my credit score will take care of itself; the paradigm for financial advise on both the internet and in magazines has been "(1) stop people from stealing your identity, and (2) use this one weird trick to raise your FICO score" since 2010 -- leftists once might have cared about labor, opportunity, taxes and such, today they care about insurance (e.g. health insurance) and credit (student loans). The idea that you might have your own money to spend on something you want to spend it on is right out of the 1950s like the stay at hom emome.