"... if the only means you have [of] exclusion is shaming, then you are powerless against the insolent."
A notable mechanism in public education, which itself is an institution of manufacture of product within which vulgarity is a feature. If manners and civility do exist in bits of the raw material, they are likely to be pounded out in the factory, and certainly not built in there.
Yours is a useful framework for considering my world. Fine generalization, too, of the nature and spectacle of the Rude Right.
"The alleged vulgarity of the “new right”, the racists and sexists of internet fame and infamy, is an irony. Their not playing by the rules, their “open misogyny” and the like, is more a case of, an aesthetic act of “revealing what is already the case”, than any attempt to create more vulgarity. The expressions are not to create, but an attempt to reveal, and a call to recognize, vulgarity.
The allegedly “extremist” vulgarity is an Act, big A, a theater act, an aesthetic act, designed to reveal the hidden suppressed truth of what they feel is already the case: that we live in a state of unacceptable, unendurable vulgarity. The “open misogyny and racism” has always ultimately been, structurally, ironic. Not because they “actually secretly respect women deep down,” as that term respect is used in mainstream society today, this is exactly the vulgarity they react against. But in tone: its always a snarl.
It doesn’t really matter whether any one person “respects women” or not - The irony being expressed, is, “I am not the one being vulgar, despite everything”. The “open, vulgar racism”, the same thing. Even if you believe it - the most dyed in the wool hardcore race realist, racism scientist, is never a flat, boring, rigid “scientist”, but an ironist and a cynic, holding up a plucked chicken and saying: “behold a man!”
Thank you for the great read. Great expansion upon a previous topic! ( road rage) I read NPC 1&2 this morning, plan on reading them again in the next few days after I reflect a bit. Short on time this weekend but will certainly revisit.
I struggle with brevity at times, so I will try to keep one line of thought short, hopefully it lands. Essentially what you have described is the reversal of the established methods of human social communication and the methods of creating social reality that took millenia to form. ( your 2D to 3D perspective example was brilliant. Please.. a nice Wittgenstein ladder to understanding consent ) This reversal, I have called the unmooring of the human element, was necessary in my opinion, for the development of mass society. The old symbolic order had to be destroyed in order to be replaced. It is not a coincidence that the attacks upon Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries, corresponded to a decrease, and to some degree in the modern world, an elimination, of virtue.
Even as a Christian, I am not saying you must be a Christian to have virtue ethics, but the correlation with how Christianity shapes social order and its respective mores becomes ever more clear with its growing absence. It serves a greater purpose, even an astute atheist cannot deny this.
Individuals with virtue and agency are not compatible with mass society nor are they desired by those who control it. Hence, the rise of the NPC and all of its associated psychology.
Another very interesting post. I still don't understand the private/public sphere though. Does the public sphere only emerge through self-objectification? How does the private sphere emerge though? Simultaneously? But what if only after and through the public sphere?
'Someone who does not recognize public space, and treats all space as private' - what about the opposite, i.e. some who does not recognize private space, and treats all space as public? Would that be the NPC as well or its opposite? If so, what?
In a general sense, private sphere is basic awareness in space, most primitive level of sentience. Knowing where you are and how to interact with the physical world around you, basic stuff. You're right that it might be useful to have a distinction, different names for private space before and after reflecting it in public space. Private sphere emerges at baby age as you differentiate yourself from the environment in a rudimentary sense.
Someone who as an adult only has public space, or too much public and too little private space, is the neurotic. The man who is paralyzed with indecision, terror. The difference between only private and only public is skin deep in a way, because it's having the distinction that's the key to the whole operation. The main difference being, do you think you're the center of the world, or do you feel unwelcome in the world, like a perpetual trespasser. The NPC who is in resignation, and not merely stupid, is in resignation because he doesn't commit to making a space for himself, literally and mentally, and separating it from the public space.
Thanks for the reply. That's exactly what I wanted to know. I was confused at first because I assumed the private sphere emerges merely as a limitation of the public sphere. But your theory reminds me of Lacan's Mirror stage wherein we first become an object (subject?) and form the 'je' by distinguishing ourselves from our surroundings. Did this influence your thinking?
Advice on living life has gone from 'just be a decent fuckin' human being' to 'just be a 'REAL HUMAN BEING'. I wonder what's next for discourse: maybe we just revert to clubbing each other indiscriminately.
Ultimately, the answer to the woman question is to stop thinking and ask her out. Better to be vulnerable than to be dead
yeah to be tbh, i'm in a ship because of rand
kind regards
Congrats man
It is, even if it fails in the end. It is worth it.
"... if the only means you have [of] exclusion is shaming, then you are powerless against the insolent."
A notable mechanism in public education, which itself is an institution of manufacture of product within which vulgarity is a feature. If manners and civility do exist in bits of the raw material, they are likely to be pounded out in the factory, and certainly not built in there.
Yours is a useful framework for considering my world. Fine generalization, too, of the nature and spectacle of the Rude Right.
Really amazing section, the best part:
"The alleged vulgarity of the “new right”, the racists and sexists of internet fame and infamy, is an irony. Their not playing by the rules, their “open misogyny” and the like, is more a case of, an aesthetic act of “revealing what is already the case”, than any attempt to create more vulgarity. The expressions are not to create, but an attempt to reveal, and a call to recognize, vulgarity.
The allegedly “extremist” vulgarity is an Act, big A, a theater act, an aesthetic act, designed to reveal the hidden suppressed truth of what they feel is already the case: that we live in a state of unacceptable, unendurable vulgarity. The “open misogyny and racism” has always ultimately been, structurally, ironic. Not because they “actually secretly respect women deep down,” as that term respect is used in mainstream society today, this is exactly the vulgarity they react against. But in tone: its always a snarl.
It doesn’t really matter whether any one person “respects women” or not - The irony being expressed, is, “I am not the one being vulgar, despite everything”. The “open, vulgar racism”, the same thing. Even if you believe it - the most dyed in the wool hardcore race realist, racism scientist, is never a flat, boring, rigid “scientist”, but an ironist and a cynic, holding up a plucked chicken and saying: “behold a man!”
Thank you for the great read. Great expansion upon a previous topic! ( road rage) I read NPC 1&2 this morning, plan on reading them again in the next few days after I reflect a bit. Short on time this weekend but will certainly revisit.
I struggle with brevity at times, so I will try to keep one line of thought short, hopefully it lands. Essentially what you have described is the reversal of the established methods of human social communication and the methods of creating social reality that took millenia to form. ( your 2D to 3D perspective example was brilliant. Please.. a nice Wittgenstein ladder to understanding consent ) This reversal, I have called the unmooring of the human element, was necessary in my opinion, for the development of mass society. The old symbolic order had to be destroyed in order to be replaced. It is not a coincidence that the attacks upon Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries, corresponded to a decrease, and to some degree in the modern world, an elimination, of virtue.
Even as a Christian, I am not saying you must be a Christian to have virtue ethics, but the correlation with how Christianity shapes social order and its respective mores becomes ever more clear with its growing absence. It serves a greater purpose, even an astute atheist cannot deny this.
Individuals with virtue and agency are not compatible with mass society nor are they desired by those who control it. Hence, the rise of the NPC and all of its associated psychology.
Thanks again for the great article.
Another very interesting post. I still don't understand the private/public sphere though. Does the public sphere only emerge through self-objectification? How does the private sphere emerge though? Simultaneously? But what if only after and through the public sphere?
'Someone who does not recognize public space, and treats all space as private' - what about the opposite, i.e. some who does not recognize private space, and treats all space as public? Would that be the NPC as well or its opposite? If so, what?
In a general sense, private sphere is basic awareness in space, most primitive level of sentience. Knowing where you are and how to interact with the physical world around you, basic stuff. You're right that it might be useful to have a distinction, different names for private space before and after reflecting it in public space. Private sphere emerges at baby age as you differentiate yourself from the environment in a rudimentary sense.
Someone who as an adult only has public space, or too much public and too little private space, is the neurotic. The man who is paralyzed with indecision, terror. The difference between only private and only public is skin deep in a way, because it's having the distinction that's the key to the whole operation. The main difference being, do you think you're the center of the world, or do you feel unwelcome in the world, like a perpetual trespasser. The NPC who is in resignation, and not merely stupid, is in resignation because he doesn't commit to making a space for himself, literally and mentally, and separating it from the public space.
Thanks for the reply. That's exactly what I wanted to know. I was confused at first because I assumed the private sphere emerges merely as a limitation of the public sphere. But your theory reminds me of Lacan's Mirror stage wherein we first become an object (subject?) and form the 'je' by distinguishing ourselves from our surroundings. Did this influence your thinking?
Not directly in that I haven't actually read any lacan primary sources. Sounds like he's on to something though
Advice on living life has gone from 'just be a decent fuckin' human being' to 'just be a 'REAL HUMAN BEING'. I wonder what's next for discourse: maybe we just revert to clubbing each other indiscriminately.