Thread by @0x49fa98

I hear people say "right and left" are no longer coherent concepts. This is wrong but I see the temptation. The right lost bigly and no one wants to be on the losing team. How to get out of it? Oh, I know, the teams don't exist! Whew!

That was a close one. Almost had to feel like a loser for a second there. Must protect the positive self-image at all times. I'm not joking, I really mean that.

Common argumentative tactic, if you've been on twitter more than an hour you've seen it: "The concept you're using doesn't exist, it's really just [other concept]" or "it's a false distinction."

https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1100426659805650945

So there's no such thing as right and left any more, that's what you think? Well someone is giving lupiron to little boys and it sure as hell ain't "the right." These people have a name, and that name is the left.

https://twitter.com/L0m3z/status/1379842097138655232

And if you think you're on the left but you don't support that, then you're wrong about one of two things: either you're not really on the left, or else you support it by default. The excesses of the lft cannot be curbed, the excesses are the point

But most leftists don't bother with this, they think it's all good: more socialism, more sexual politics, no borders, no shepherds, one herd. So I won't waste more words on those who are confused about what they themselves believe in

Leftists exist, and people opposed to leftists exist, and I'm going to continue to call them "the right". Accepting this label means accepting a dire situation. It means accepting that a lot of lost people are on "your side." But those people can become found.

When I say I am right-wing I have people come to me who think they're above it all: why would you want to limit yourself with a label like that? They think if they stay nameless, they can be formless. When you put it like that, you see how stupid it sounds?

We used to talk more about being atomized, remember? About being rootless. And what does that mean? It means you don't have a label, it means you don't know what to call yourself. No identity.

You think you hate identity politics, but what you hate is that your identity, if you are male, or straight, or white, or worse: all three, is the target of a moral and rhetorical framework whose express purpose is to dissolve and marginalize you

So why do you want to play the heel, they ask? What, are you going to whine about it? But that's the trick, that's you falling for it; you'd rather be no one at all than be that most hated thing, a straight white man

It's less painful if you don't think about it. If you go quietly. And that's why the label matters, and also why you're afraid of it. If it didn't matter, there would be nothing to fear

And it's true that "white male" in itself would be a pretty stupid identity, as stupid as "black woman" – but here we are. Everyone else celebrates their sex and their race, but you don't get an identity unless you renounce both

They'll tell you that's not true, but it's a lie. An identity is so important that many men – cowards – are willing to accept the bargain, to be the lowest rung of the ladder, just so they can be welcomed into the fold

"all of history has been about you" they say, "it's someone else's turn. You are the default, so we honor others, not to lower you, but to raise them." Lies, gaslighting, whatever you want to call it. White men, do you feel in charge?

The president of the USA is a straight white man, they say. First off, no, the president of the united states is a jamaican/indian woman, even the "president" knows it. Second, his symbolic importance is that he will shortly step down

https://twitter.com/forbes/status/1372653543115649032

Anyway, what's an identity? It means you know who you are. It's how you know what's right and what's wrong, and who to trust. You need an identity because that's how you find your place in the world, so you know how you fit with others

Maybe you think that the left is the polity of change, and the right is the polity of stasis. And who told you that, was it the left? Baseless slander. Stasis is slow death, and we preach life, which is measured growth.

Left and right both want change, I promise you that. But we desire very different changes from these people who wreak destruction and call it "progress", who call neglect "liberty" and decrepitude "health"

What does it mean to be right or left? You think it has something to do with “economics” maybe — that’s why you constantly lose. This is the cynic’s take, the simpleton’s take: that “it’s all driven by money” — but there are many other vices, other sins

Money is only a proxy for less tangible things, things much realer than money, things older and deeper and more human. Things like dignity and honor, things economists can never measure

Invisible things! Gossamer things! Managerial man sneers at honor and dignity. What are those, he says, can you eat them? Do they keep you warm? In fact they can.

I'll tell you what it means to be right-wing: It means you know beauty is an unalloyed good, a good unto itself. Likewise strength.

https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1024462501306462208

We shouldn't need to affirm the goodness of beauty; it should be self-evident. But so many people are ugly and weak, not that they were born that way necessarily, but they made themselves that way, and declared ugliness and weakness to be the same as beauty and strength

"Alright, suppose I believe you", you say, "What will I do with this identity? What good is it?" At best, its an anchor, which is to say it's a burden, but it keeps you from getting tossed all about in sea of information

https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1195754016719769601

Postmodern condition, the only way you know anything is by believing statistics, images, and "facts", curated by "experts," journalists and politicians, all disconnected from the knowledge of your own eyes and heart.

https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1281387008376614913

What good is identity? It can make you act irrationally at a time when irrationality is greatly needed. What's dignity? What's honor? Why climb a mountain? Why raise a child? These are not rational things. So much the worse for rationality.

No great man in history has ever been shackled by something as petty and parochial as rationality. No great monuments were ever built because of "incentive alignment". No nation was ever founded to meet metric goals.

And now because you have thought this way, there is no longer a country for you forsaken American sons; Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but you hath not where to lay your head

https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1347615828804558851

As long as we remain "rational" – we will always trade dignity for comfort, and we will lose all we have of both. If I told you what a real white boy summer would look like, I'm pretty sure they'd throw me in jail. opindia.com/2021/04/usa-po…