Gonna listen to this now, since, "ability to understand fascism" is one of my litmus tests. I hope @aimeeterese and @BMStudebaker don't fall into any of the pitfalls that A. James Gregor had to refute. (if neither syndicalism nor "proletarian nationalism" are mentioned...)
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker They understand that it's a democratic phenomenon, at least. Let's see if they name the general will and Rousseau.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker They're getting into how fascists see folk communities as anterior to politics. This is good (and why fascism is a species of liberalism) but I'm not sure if they'll be brave enough to mention how this was derived directly from Anglo-empiricist evolutionary biology. 
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker "You see how this comes out of a desire, not to be undemocratic, but totalizing in a democratic way."
So close to the Rousseau pill, you can do it!
So close to the Rousseau pill, you can do it!
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker Distinguishing between "reactionaries" and "Fascists" now. very good. (although ben still calls Hobbes a reactionary. 😬)
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker Contrasting the Austrian and German empires to explain why "fascism" doesn't really make sense to describe pre-liberal states. Very good.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker "nationalists put up statues of Vercingetorix in Paris or Boadicea in London... these people are celts! And they get replaced by Romans, and then the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons come into these countries and they have nothing to do with Boadicea or Vercingetorix!"
Vargpilled lol
Vargpilled lol
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker Ben draws the distinction between ancient polities that draw unity through the imperium of the monarch and modern ones that claim to represent "the people" in some sense.
Checks out.
Checks out.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker "Fascism depends on this notion of a state aligned with mythical people, and that notion of a mythical people that can revoke its consent... that comes out of democratic theory not [pre-modern monarchism]"
Aside from the Hobbes cringe, this episode owns.
Aside from the Hobbes cringe, this episode owns.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker Ben draws the genealogy of modern democracy from the Catholic church. He names the power struggle between western princes and the Catholic church. Talks about how it grows out of natural law theory used to criticize Kings until "Hobbes & Hume [took] the God stuff out of it."
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker
Lets see if they realize that this means democracy is incoherent outside the context of ultramontanism lol.
Lets see if they realize that this means democracy is incoherent outside the context of ultramontanism lol.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker "This blows the shackles off and suddenly you have everyone making all sorts of arguments about how everything is natural and using this as some sort of political cover."
@BMStudebaker, have you read @cbonduk's book "Nemesis"? If not, you really, really, should.
@BMStudebaker, have you read @cbonduk's book "Nemesis"? If not, you really, really, should.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "Once [natural law] gets out from under Catholic theism, it becomes open season and it evolves into this really messed up democratic theory based on a primordial natural people."
What's left of the left? Apparently the Counter-Enlightenment.
What's left of the left? Apparently the Counter-Enlightenment.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Aimee chimes in at first to, of course, connect this demotic logic to modern human rights theory. (and, implicitly, idpol)
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk From here, Ben brings up Nietzsche's essential critique of modernity being a systemic demolition of the (Christian) foundations of the social institutions and concepts that we prop up arbitrarily and pretend are freestanding.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "If you don't believe in God but do believe in natural [or human] rights, you've got to reckon with how incongruous that is."
😎
😎
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "On the one hand, [post-🇻🇦natural law] does create space for challenging this [...] ruling elite, but at the same time it also opens the possibility to a lot of bizarre and strange and potentially dangerous arguments based on naturalistic conceptions."
Really makes you think.
Really makes you think.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Aimee reminds us that these ideas here used as propaganda for specific purposes by specific elites. Ben notes that anyone who wanted their ideas to have any influence at all in the medieval period had to tie them to theology, however tenuously.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Ben ties western secularization to the growth in strength of state power from it's low-point after the collapse of western Rome.
"Can I [as the state] have direct relations with my subjects that cut across the church?
Very Jouvenel.
"Can I [as the state] have direct relations with my subjects that cut across the church?
Very Jouvenel.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "I don't think it's effective to argue in moral terms."
Aimee has no idea just how right she is.
Aimee has no idea just how right she is.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk The problem, of course, is that ethics is the answer to the question "how should we live," so politics is a subset of ethics and Marxist disregard for morals is one of the weaknesses that exposed them up to liberal entryism.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Mandatory Liz Warren bashing segment now. Just assassinate her already so I don't have to listen to this every episode.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Okay, now that the groundwork is established, we're going to talk about fascism in practice.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Comparing the political economy of FDR and Hitler. They basically admit that it's the same stuff, but had different cultural "baggage."
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Commentary on Hitler's market interventions. I only know about what the Italian state did, so I can't really comment here.
I hope they acknowledge more fascists who weren't Nazis later on.
I hope they acknowledge more fascists who weren't Nazis later on.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "[calling everything fascist] is just as stupid as the Republicans who call everything socialist. When you do this, you look exactly as stupid as the Republicans who called Obama a Marxist."
No wonder everyone on the left hates these people. 🤣
No wonder everyone on the left hates these people. 🤣
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "Bear in mind that what this did, calling Obama a socialist and a communist, is make socialism more acceptable. Because if you liked Obama and he was a socialist, then maybe socialism wasn't so bad."
They then apply the obvious lesson of this to fascism.
They then apply the obvious lesson of this to fascism.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk They're saying that it's possible to be a racist without being a fascist. I wonder how much REEEEEing this caused.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "If you have someone with really xenophobic views but is willing to stand down if they lose an election, you don't have fascism."
I hate living in a world where this has to be said.
I hate living in a world where this has to be said.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk A little bit of talk about how calling someone fascist doesn't really make sense in the current year. Lets see if this gets into proletarian nationalism and the absence of its necessary conditions.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Ah, it's about how calling someone a fascist or a communist when you can't actually enact or perform fascism or communism in the post-cold war neoliberal clown world is Idealist nonsense. Almost as good.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "1944 was a crazy year for political thought. That's the same year Hayek wrote 'The Road to Serfdom.'"
Don't know why I laughed at this, but I did.
Don't know why I laughed at this, but I did.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk They conclude that "we need to be much more worried about Hayekians--neolibs [than about fascists]"
Good to see at least two people took my advice.
Good to see at least two people took my advice.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Reading out Jeet Heer's anti-"fascist" tweets for mockery. Not really informative, but I support anyone who bullies Jeet early and often.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk Wait, Jeet literally called people who think Epstein didn't kill himself fascists? I didn't think even he could be that obsequious.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "First off, Jeet is a fucking idiot, so I don't think he's doing this on purpose. He's never questioned anything in his entire life."
Aimee Terese in a rare moment of understatement.
Aimee Terese in a rare moment of understatement.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk They then censure a socialist for tweeting at Jeet as thought he was a rational adult instead of an intellectual prostitute who does it for free. Based.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "The problem is that this assumes that most voters have a coherent ideology."
IDK about the redpill, but they definitely took the normiepill.
IDK about the redpill, but they definitely took the normiepill.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk An off the cuff 'fascism is capitalism in decline' take. As though Italian capitalism (as opposed to foreign imperialist capital) was developed enough to even assert hegemony in the first place.
Sometimes I think I'm the only one on this site who actually read Gramsci or Gregor.
Sometimes I think I'm the only one on this site who actually read Gramsci or Gregor.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "Fascism isn't a grassroots movment It always comes from the elite. This is the thing about states. States are run by people in the elite class. It comes from the left's delusion that everything comes from the up and everything is grassroots."
They really need to read Nemesis.
They really need to read Nemesis.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk AOC apparently called Stephen Miller a fascist and started a petition to get him removed. Aside from the absurdity of claiming a fascist would care about petitions, Aimee asks a very Schmittian question: "You're a politician. [...] Can you exercise power efficiently or not?"
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk "Admittedly, I am an aesthetic fascist." -@aimeeterese
Shameful, someone should get this women some Eisenstein DVDs and pictures of Soviet architecture. I'll start.
Shameful, someone should get this women some Eisenstein DVDs and pictures of Soviet architecture. I'll start.
@aimeeterese @BMStudebaker @CBonduk All in all, this episode was more about explaining what democracy is and why it's bad than fascism.
Which I'm totally cool with, but it's still false advertising. 7/10
Which I'm totally cool with, but it's still false advertising. 7/10
