Is Trump a German Idealist?

I'm not sure what "assimilation takes time" has to do with my post but I guess that's true. As to SJWs, you seem especially upset with this lot. You post about them a bunch. I don't really get it but I'll chalk it up to just another senile drama queen fag making mountains of molehills (ooops lookout bet the pc police are coming to get me!)

I guess the problem with that is that it's not leadership. But also no one really cares, I guess. The german idealism thing is funny but also that dude's thing is clearly "I'm smarter than you so i can do and support whatever and it doesn't matter - you're dumb (is it uploading yet?)" fine for 4chan, bad for irl politics. Making democracy itself a cleverer-than-thou shitpost is the saddest shittiest most nihilistic direction for our country to move in.

What exactly do you think democracy is or expect it to be? Honest question. It seems to me that what you described is the pinnacle of a functioning democracy.

I think the German Idealism video is about, 'I can say whatever I want and it doesn't matter' – the crowd made it fit the discourse by thinking he was talking about Nazism anyway. Reality literally doesn't matter.

Well that was surely the intended effect of his speech - to demonstrate, to others, how people will interpret 'german idealism' as Nazism (which incidentally isn't alll that different from the actual tale of Nazism, but that's another story.) But why did he do that? Obviously to be recognized by his online community as a master troll. (That's obvious to me anyway, what do you think?)

I don't think democracy means the people realize their will immediately in the house/senate/president, but I think the idea is they force the elected body to make compromises. It never works all that well, but it's like that Churchill quote, it's better than the alternative. It's obvious that the people often act against their own interests, and shouldn't be able to instantly materialize their ephemeral passions as policy; but it's also obvious that a governing body of enlightened rulers will grow corrupt, callous and decadent if they have no one else to answer to. Democracy is a forced tension between the two groups, I guess.

Well that was surely the intended effect of his speech - to demonstrate, to others, how people will interpret 'german idealism' as Nazism (which incidentally isn't alll that different from the actual tale of Nazism, but that's another story.) — csalisbury

It could be, but the fact that he started out with the Atlantis stuff makes me think otherwise. My first guess was, college student studying philosophy who on the spot ranted about something he knows about. He didn't really pick up on the responses interpreting it as Nazism and run with it.

But why did he do that? Obviously to be recognized by his online community as a master troll. (That's obvious to me anyway, what do you think?) — csalisbury

Probably because it's funny and he can say whatever he wants – which is the point. In a democracy it doesn't matter what you say, because everything is equally disconnected from reality. Asking if Trump is a German idealist is no more or less silly than asking if he's whatever else he's supposed to be.

I don't think democracy means the people realize their will immediately in the house/senate/congress, but I think the idea is they force the elected body to make compromises. It never works all that well, but it's like that Churchill quote, it's better than the alternative. It's obvious that the people often act against their own interests, and shouldn't simply be able to materialize their ephemeral passions as policy; but it's also obvious that a governing body of enlightened rulers will grow corrupt and decadent if they have no one else to answer too. Democracy is a forced tension between the two groups, I guess. — csalisbury

I think your mistake is assuming that there is some sort of systematic connection between the reasons that people vote or say things and what happens. Again, my point is that democracy is pure circus – it's not something that gets interrupted by circus when we're not vigilant, or whatever. People don't for or against anyone's interest, they vote based on IRL memes. Trump embraces the circus, at least to a degree that others don't.

Democracy is literally about 'representation.' It sets aside the doxa to give it authority in a principled way. Nothing a voter thinks or does connects in any traceable causal way to what results from those thoughts and decisions, so you're free to think or say or do whatever you want and blame someone else for saying the opposite.

Yes, people vote based on memes and always have. It's always a circus. But the point is you have to court people, dumb as they are, as susceptible to 'trump's a german idealist' as they are. And not everyone is dumb. And there are intermediary groups and interests mediating between the people and the candidates. And some people actually really do vote based on stuff like healthcare and social security and not pictures of Hillary fucking the anunnaki with a strapon at bohemian grove. The drooling mob thing is a little too easy, imo. But what do you think of Democracy? Is there another system you'd prefer? & why?

I'm not saying people are dumb or vote against their own interests (which IMO is an elitist, mostly leftist 'meme' used primarily to berate poor people), but rather that there is no connection between voting and what happens in the government. Democracy exists entirely in a self-perpetuating doxa or representation. There's no way to make people 'better American citizens' or to 'vote right.' The best you can do is become aware of the system to temporarily game it for your own benefit.

As for other systems, I don't know. I think to propose a system from out of nowhere that would be better would be a leftist way of looking at things, which I reject. The closest I could come would be that I'm suspicious of the distinction between government and family, and think the family is probably the only institution that works in any interesting capacity, in that it creates a situation where self-interest and altruism effortlessly align, and culture that binds members together forms spontaneously, along with love. A democracy has none of these things, and is generally poisonous to the family, which is now dying.

there is no connection between voting and what happens in the government.

Local reps wouldn't try to get pork into bills if voting had nothing to do with results. You have to deliver at some level. The whole point, imo, is that everyone tends toward corruption so you have to force government to cater to people. And they do, they cater. Because they're up for re-election. I have no starry-eyed belief that this system works well, or that elected officials cater beyond the bare minimum. I just think it makes a certain antagonism (ppl vs government) internal to the system and I think that's nice, and works better than any other system.

I agree, too, about family - family and close friends are the only thing I care deeply about - but globalization is a fait accompli & I don't know how you would remove those forces antithetical to family without a forceful, planned intervention (as you say, that would be that leftist way of treating things.)

Christianity did a big ideological number on the family long ago and it's grown from there. Can't dial things back.

Anyway, regarding the german idealist guy: here are the 5 comments on this vid (which I hadn't seen when I first posted)

- ＨＯＷ ＣＡＮ ＷＥ ＣＯＭＰＬＥＴＥ ＴＨＥ ＳＹＳＴＥＭ ＯＦ ＧＥＲＭＡＮ ＩＤＥＡＬＩＳＭ

- Lmfao. Thule society. Vrill society was a lot cooler

- This guy is a legend

- how2shitpostirl

- me irl

-----
I stand by my first interpretation. It's 100% about shitposting and trolling. Also this vid has 208 views, the poster has posted 4 vids and the guy in the clip mentions the alt-right at the end- so we can assume you found this through some alt-right something. It wouldn't have come up in any search.

Here's a vid posted by the guy with the most-liked comment on the german idealism vid:




What's shitty about this video isn't that it's offensive (it's trying so hard it can't be) it's that it's two guys (one's the dominant 'edgy' one, one's the timid foil trying to play along, you can feel their entire lopsided friendship dynamic ) who can't differentiate easy edgy-humor from irl events. It's all the same shit to them. It's all an opportunity to seem beyond-it-all. (tho you know they'd flip at Dad if he stopped footing the bills, you can hear that too or I can)

& Maybe they're just in high school, and I get it, I tried to be edgy too, in similar (tho I hope more clever) ways. You have to break your zeitgeist's idols at some point, if you're ever going to become your own person. But taking this same type of thing past high school, well into your twenties or thirties? That's what the alt-right sometimes feels like to me. And then it's just like: 'C'mon, that's all you've got? That's how you're going to define and express yourself?' kek :'-(

I don't really get it but I'll chalk it up to just another senile drama queen fag making mountains of molehills — csalisbury

Mercy, mercy, Mary.

I suppose I do have a thing about Social Justice Warriors. I used to be an earlier version. I was up on all this stuff, and not cynically. Like a lot of things, it got carried away with itself. It became too self-righteous; too judgmental; too dictatorial; too unreflective. It became unhealthy. It shallowed out. It narrows down to nothing.

Three Dog Night had a hit with this song from Hair: of which...

...Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice...
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needy friend
I need a friend

Of course, each generation has its causes célèbre, its favoring bleeding victims. And I get that every generation tends to run their vaunted ideals into the ground through over use. There's a proverb, "Never trust a young man who isn't a socialist, and never trust an old man who is." I don't entirely agree with this piece of wisdom, having been a young socialist and an old one both, but there is some truth to it. The truth is that youthful and stringent idealism should mature, ferment into a more sophisticated apprehension of reality. There's a good chance that the old socialist has run Marx into the ground.

The thing to which people object in all of the discourse about isms and phobias is that it retains the raw flavor of youth who have JUST DISCOVERED that bad things happen to good people, (or worse, good things happen to bad people), that life is unfair, that individuals contain a host of contradictory values (and are still good people), etc. etc. etc.

Well, so that's it. It's that whole clockwork orange theme of: young people have to go through their intense, violent, passion-driven youthful stage and there's no way around that. Better SJWS than the Red Guards, right? (And it's probably worth keeping in mind that there's a difference between decrying straight up bigotry (of the type often on display on Breitbart) and demanding safe spaces on every block and trigger warnings for every challenging opinion. These are two very different things.)

The trouble is the mature arguments of the "SJWs" are descriptive of social relations, which people like yourself steadfastly deny. There something else going on than just being disgruntled at youthful idealism. To use are recent exchanges as an example, you would not accept the descriptive argument about the racism (the genocide and dispossession of the Native Americans for mainly economic purposes) of the US towards the Native Americans. You dismissed it with appeals to that "it was just capitalism" or "other people did or would do the same thing (indeed, you sounded just like Hanover does in this thread).

For most people objecting to the isms and phobias, it the same. Their arguments are made with direct denial of the descriptive points about society and people, rather than on the basis of some "SJWs" being abusive or lacking pragmatism. You don't, for example, stand-up and say: "The US was undoubtedly racist against the Native Americans. Europeans destroyed and exploited many indigenous people and cultures... but that doesn't means we have to go around abusing racists, sexists, etc.,etc. and getting lost in the world of magical utopias." Rather you treat these descriptions of societies as if they were just virtue signalling, as if it were about saying white people we inferior to everyone else or being seen to be supporting oppressed groups.

You treat out understanding of society as if it must be sanitised of description of oppression.

It became unhealthy — Bitter Crank

But the ideal never changes. It's just that we always end up falling short of it.

I was really happy when the SCOTUS opened the way for gay marriage. Some things about Trump disgust me. Those feelings are proximity-to-the-ideal detectors. The youthful are more likely to be burned alive by those feelings because they were just born and they still have a little bit of eternity to them... poetically speaking.

The thing to which people object in all of the discourse about isms and phobias is that it retains the raw flavor of youth who have JUST DISCOVERED that bad things happen to good people, (or worse, good things happen to bad people), that life is unfair, that individuals contain a host of contradictory values (and are still good people), etc. etc. etc. — Bitter Crank

Nice, yeah.

That certain things are inevitable is just something you've been sold on, though (perhaps, in part, by the German idealists). This is the 'wrong side of history' argument.

I don't know how you would remove those forces antithetical to family without a forceful, planned intervention (as you say, that would be that leftist way of treating things.) — csalisbury

If it were possible, it would happen by voting with your dollars. Media campaigns and social gaffes can now affect the profits of large corporations in volatile ways if anyone involved with that corporation doesn't toe some doxic line. Stop buying trash, stop watching shitty Marvel and Disney movies, cancel your HBO subscription, throw away all of your garbage newspapers, log off of FaceBook, and learn about your traditional music, cooking, and spirituality. Go to church. Read a book. Individuals have to take an interest in culture, and demonstrate that they're no longer interested in its destruction.

I agree that that would help....It's just hard to imagine swathes of the population large enough to have a significant impact actually doing it.

I guess maybe I've been 'sold on' the idea that people are inevitably going to be more passionate and simple-minded in their ideals during their teens-mid 20s, but, idk, it seems to bear out empirically, doesn't it?

Stop buying trash, stop watching shitty Marvel and Disney movies, cancel your HBO subscription, throw away all of your garbage newspapers, log off of FaceBook, and learn about your traditional music, cooking, and spirituality. Go to church. Read a book. Individuals have to take an interest in culture, and demonstrate that they're no longer interested in its destruction. — The Great Whatever

What a joke! No.

Spirituality? Church? Don't make me laugh.

Cooking? That's a chore. I'll order a takeaway.

How about you stop going to shitty church and listening to garbage traditional music and reading trash. Throw it all away. Watch a Marvel movie or read the news.

Such snobbery, such hyperbole. The destruction of culture? Pfft.

An op-ed from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.753694.

It looks like there's little evidence Bannon hates Jews. The problem with the left yelling racist is that they're now the boy who cried wolf.

What I'd need to jump on the hang Bannon bandwagon is some real evidence that Bannon has real plans to push forth anti-Jewish policy. In truth, the liberal agenda is far less kind to Israel, and I see that as a real threat to Jews, far more than the evangelicals who fully support Israel but who believe I'm going to straight to hell. All this trying to decipher what goes on in the hearts of politicians isn't real interesting to me. I'm well aware they care only for themselves anyway. My concern is pragmatic. I trust they're all scoundrels regardless of stripe. You don't need to prove that to me.

Has anyone ever seen Banno and Bannon in the same room? Might be the same person. Just saying.

Earth to Hanover. Bannon is tolerant of intolerance. Why is he? Who cares? The president is a figurehead. He represents the US. People who object to Bannon's position object to the message it sends about what is and is not acceptable here. That's pretty obvious.

Liberals are unkind to Israel? No. Netanyahu is unkind to his own culture by presenting its ass to the world. Israel actually did victimize Palestinians in the 20th Century. To behave as if Israel is now the victim is a betrayal of those Palestinian victims and it's blatantly absurd.

I'd go further, removing such forces is impossible without a myth that drives everything else down. "Family" is itself a social myth that drives doxa. The structures of social power become parasitic on family. While family is no doubt an altruistic force, in the social context it turns into the myth that drives the politucal machine. A defence not of family members, but of a political force or organisation.

TGW misunderstands what voting is about. Like many, he thinks it's goal is to have someone who advocates for one's own interests. This is a bit a a red herring. To many people, it doesn't really matter who is in power. Their life goes on regardless of which part is in power, without being affected too much. The impact of elections is on the few who are actually impacted by differences in value and policy.

Most of us don't vote for our own interests, but with respect to the internets of others. An election is all about the myth we value, about the team we grant power to, the group of people we say have the right to impact on the lives of a minority of others in some way. That's what politics is all about. It's what happens when human communities grow large enough that people don't already have an interest in acting.

Cooking? That's a chore. I'll order a takeaway. — Sapientia

Cooking isn't a chore, it's a cultural art with a rich history that blends culture, personal creativity, and sensuality.

On another note, I really wish I knew how to cook.

I think a lot of people in our generation do. It's very sad, a kind of alienation that we don't prepare our own food.

What I'd need to jump on the hang Bannon bandwagon is some real evidence that Bannon has real plans to push forth anti-Jewish policy. In truth, the liberal agenda is far less kind to Israel, and I see that as a real threat to Jews, far more than the evangelicals who fully support Israel but who believe I'm going to straight to hell. All this trying to decipher what goes on in the hearts of politicians isn't real interesting to me. I'm well aware they care only for themselves anyway. My concern is pragmatic. I trust they're all scoundrels regardless of stripe. You don't need to prove that to me. — Hanover

In my view Bannon is a symptom of the change in the public discourse. It is more offensive than before.

Actually, it was all quite easy to forecast if Trump would win: The protests, the lewd remarks and open bigotry, and then the shock of the "lewd remarks and open bigotry" in the media, the tension and division. It would happen. When Trump called Mexicans rapists, then it was off. And if he would really win, everything above could be totally anticipated.

The reason is that when a populist breaks the boundaries of "proper" political discourse, it is viewed by his supporters as "straight talk", talk about the actual reality etc. And hence the earlier norms are assaulted as being just "Politically Correct". PC is not correct otherwise, then it would called more of common sense good manners. And sometimes there is a point to critisize the way things are talked about, yet many times there isn't.

Part of the people feel that the discourse is dominated by (leftist) political correctness, by far more educated and more well of people than them, who seem to have a condescending attitude towards them "ordinary people", the countryside folk, the hillbillies, rednecks, blue collar workers and all the stereoypes, They finally see that this is their chance to spill their guts. And some of them then feel free to talk their mind. If the now President elect called Mexican rapists, guess then ordinary people can call them too. And this of course has an instant backlash. Suddenly the whole atmosphere is like from a bygone era, as if all the progress that has earlier happened has been swept away and the society is hostile, racist and non-permissive.

Why I say this is that I've seen a similar thing in my country, which was close enough. When a totally new and truly ideologically populist party, the True Finns, broke the decades old equilibrium of the ruling parties, it created a similar situation with it's anti-immigration rhetoric (quite similar to Trump). There weren't protests here in my country, but similar uneasiness of these racist hillbilly (here called juntti) bigots coming to decide about things in the Parliament. And a far more hostile public discourse than before.

But in the end, the True Finns have been, to much dissappointment of their supporters, a very responsible party while now in power and basically a team player with the other parties once the biggest migrant crisis hit the country since WW2. And this may be the thing with a Bannon. Assuming that he will be there as an advisor to Trump in the future, we really have to see just what kind of administration the Trump White House will be.

At least it surely isn't going to be boring.

Cooking isn't a chore, it's a cultural art with a rich history that blends culture, personal creativity, and sensuality. — The Great Whatever

To some it's an art, to others it's a chore. You and your cultural snobbery don't get to dictate what it is or isn't to anyone.

I find it amusing how you (or perhaps it was your cohort) mockingly bring up the PC police, when you're acting like the head of the culture police. All we need now is the head of the virtue police, otherwise known as Agustino.

To some it's an art, to others it's a chore. You and your cultural snobbery don't get to dictate what it is or isn't to anyone. — Sapientia

Did I ever say I got to? Why are you so defensive?

Whether or not you consider it a chore has no bearing on its value as an art. How bizarre to object that one person cannot decide what something is, on grounds that you have another opinion of it. But then, what makes an individual an authority on any subject, and why should individual reactions be the litmus for what is and isn't an art?

Did I ever say I got to? — The Great Whatever

Your tone was dictatorial. Do this, stop that, throw that away... I think of it as an art, so it's an art, and not a chore...

Why are you so defensive? — The Great Whatever

Because I don't like your attitude, nor what you said, nor the way that you said it. Because I found it objectionable. And because some of what you've said is indirectly about me.

Whether or not you consider it a chore has no bearing on its value as an art. — The Great Whatever

Whether or not you value it as an art has no bearing on it being a chore.

How bizarre to object that one person cannot decide what something is, on grounds that you have another opinion of it. But then, what makes an individual an authority on any subject, and why should individual reactions be the litmus for what is and isn't an art? — The Great Whatever

Do you really think that I'm the only person for which it is more of a chore than an art? It's neither one nor the other in any absolute sense. I wouldn't say that cooking is an art, I'd say that there is cooking and then there is the art of cooking.

Your tone was dictatorial. Do this, stop that, throw that away... I think of it as an art, so it's an art, and not a chore... — Sapientia

No it wasn't – I'm sorry if you read it that way. In the context of the post, those were clearly suggestions for someone like-minded, of what I thought were good ideas. If you think they're not, okay, you disagree with me, but I don't see why that is grounds for outrage. I think you're wrong, but last I checked, I'm allowed to think that without there being an outrage over it, as if I personally offended you.

Because I don't like your attitude, nor what you said, nor the way that you said it. Because I found it objectionable. And because some of what you've said is indirectly about me. — Sapientia

Considering I wasn't addressing you or talking about you, I don't know why you'd think that.

Do you really think that I'm the only person for which it is more of a chore than an art? It's neither one nor the other in any absolute sense. I wouldn't say that cooking is an art, I'd say that there is cooking and then there is the art of cooking. — Sapientia

But you haven't explained why an individual's opinion on what it is should matter to me.