I have been fighting against this constant admonition that I should be more respectful of the opinion of the Class-A people. First, I tell them that I am a Class-B "imposter" living in the Class-A world. Basically I am an insider who is an outsider. I am well positioned to see the truth. Second I tell them that their impulse is wrong... that these people don't want to debate you because they think you are evil, disgusting scum that they, the Class-A people, should dominate and control.
So I tell them that they need to denigrate them, the Class-A people, at every step... to paint them as the dangerous egotistical fools that they are. And ultimately, to work your Class-B asses off to get them the hell out of academia, political positions and government.
Frankly, it is like all the dog droppings from Central Park have come alive and seek to rule the world.
Satisfying rhetoric, but in my Class A circles the membership does not recognise its dominant status. It continues to point at the Kochs and Thiel et all, claiming to be ultimately in hock to The Far Right and that Class B is why they can’t have nice things.
Totally agree. Although they do seem particularly sensitive to a good, humiliating meme since that is the one thing they get so heinously, horribly wrong.
This is what the cultural right (the B Team) has to understand: The woke commissars don't care about arguments, consistency, logic or precedents. They care about power. They have it and they're using it--with impunity because they can. It's easy to be confused about this because the greatest bastion of wokeness, the universities, has traditionally been an arena where reason and argument are highly valued, indeed where they have been regarded as the vary basis of the educational and research mission of the university. With rare exceptions, that's all over now. This battle has to fought with the bare knuckle tactics of politics, not dialectics.
P.S. I enjoy reading you because your prose is so clearly honest, curious and heartfelt. Thus when even you have to write stuff like this, I know we're in for rough times.
"Only taking back control of the levers of power and then using that power to strike the fear of accountability into the hearts of your ruling class will ever be able to do that." In other words, it's game over and you're screwed, because their control of the levels of power is so pervasive that you will never be allowed to do so. We have to do the same as the peasants in France and Japan did: wait until they bring the temple down upon their heads.
It is like they are living in an upside down world... claiming that the Class-B people have the power and they, the Class-A people, are the victims or soon to be victims of absolute oppression.
The lamentations of the right losing its status as the ruling class.
Both teams, classes, whatever, are disgusting for different reasons. Neither is blameless, neither is pure in its intentions. Both seek power, advantage, revenge. Pettiness and schadenfreude abound. No mercy, no compassion, no forgiveness, no introspection.
In my experience, the people who squawk loudest about how awful other people are are those that are least willing and able to see their own faults.
Right now appears to be a time of significant political opportunity for for the populist right. Key, but often opaque institutional centers of power (like the FBI) are vying for greater degrees of dominance within multiple, and often hidden but overlapping and competing power networks ( like Intelligence/Big Tech/Federal Reserve) that appear collectively responsible for the real continuity of American foreign and domestic Policy.
The question of what particular individuals and organizations (both public and private) are now really in charge (with the increasing absence of President Biden) are becoming more and more paramount.
Over the last number of decades the grass-roots populist right along with some theorists like Michael Lind and Joel Kotkin) have developed increasingly sophisticated descriptions of such emerging power centers, making up what is now called the new class or the managerial class or the administrative class (also see earlier descriptions like that of James Burnham "The Managerial Revolution" (1949) and Daniel Bell "The Coming Post-Industrial Society: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976).
The underlying notion of class contained within this new class populist right perspective may now have a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to gain legitimacy as a more accurate description of contemporary political reality than the hopefully, temporarily outmoded separation of powers model (Congress, Executive Branch and the Courts running things)-- which along with federalism, decentralization, entrepreneurial capitalism as well as a culture of limits-- still strikes me as an aspirational political model worth pursuing as we attempt to return to our roots.
The dead white guy was James Madison and the Arab thought lleader is Osama bin Laden.
Curtis Yarvin is doing an elves versus hobbits schtick. He’s done about 4 rather long and of course confusing posts primarily on what motivates elves (A) but for the hobbits (B) all he says is “they just want to grill”.
I’m going to make all my friends read this public service announcement, that should make me popular.
Class A stands silent while their authoritarian Covid response and underhanded Great Reset kill 100-1 compared to the virus, which with food shortages looming, it could go to 1000-1. And they will still stand silent except to denounce and condemn Class-B.
Beautifully well done.
I have been fighting against this constant admonition that I should be more respectful of the opinion of the Class-A people. First, I tell them that I am a Class-B "imposter" living in the Class-A world. Basically I am an insider who is an outsider. I am well positioned to see the truth. Second I tell them that their impulse is wrong... that these people don't want to debate you because they think you are evil, disgusting scum that they, the Class-A people, should dominate and control.
So I tell them that they need to denigrate them, the Class-A people, at every step... to paint them as the dangerous egotistical fools that they are. And ultimately, to work your Class-B asses off to get them the hell out of academia, political positions and government.
Frankly, it is like all the dog droppings from Central Park have come alive and seek to rule the world.
Satisfying rhetoric, but in my Class A circles the membership does not recognise its dominant status. It continues to point at the Kochs and Thiel et all, claiming to be ultimately in hock to The Far Right and that Class B is why they can’t have nice things.
It seems that victimhood is reassuring.
Totally agree. Although they do seem particularly sensitive to a good, humiliating meme since that is the one thing they get so heinously, horribly wrong.
This is what the cultural right (the B Team) has to understand: The woke commissars don't care about arguments, consistency, logic or precedents. They care about power. They have it and they're using it--with impunity because they can. It's easy to be confused about this because the greatest bastion of wokeness, the universities, has traditionally been an arena where reason and argument are highly valued, indeed where they have been regarded as the vary basis of the educational and research mission of the university. With rare exceptions, that's all over now. This battle has to fought with the bare knuckle tactics of politics, not dialectics.
Based.
P.S. I enjoy reading you because your prose is so clearly honest, curious and heartfelt. Thus when even you have to write stuff like this, I know we're in for rough times.
"Only taking back control of the levers of power and then using that power to strike the fear of accountability into the hearts of your ruling class will ever be able to do that." In other words, it's game over and you're screwed, because their control of the levels of power is so pervasive that you will never be allowed to do so. We have to do the same as the peasants in France and Japan did: wait until they bring the temple down upon their heads.
I needed that. I will stop whining. I want leaders that will pay them back in full. Where are they?
Ya'll should go check out this contrasting left-world view piece: https://gfile.thedispatch.com/p/yearning-for-a-banana-republic/comments#comment-8303812
It is like they are living in an upside down world... claiming that the Class-B people have the power and they, the Class-A people, are the victims or soon to be victims of absolute oppression.
This is the most depressingly incapacitating thing I have ever read. How do I not just give up.
I find both comfort and depression in this post.
It’s great that you focused on class.
This is where the battle is, but hiding it are all of the identity choices that are strewn about the landscape.
The lamentations of the right losing its status as the ruling class.
Both teams, classes, whatever, are disgusting for different reasons. Neither is blameless, neither is pure in its intentions. Both seek power, advantage, revenge. Pettiness and schadenfreude abound. No mercy, no compassion, no forgiveness, no introspection.
In my experience, the people who squawk loudest about how awful other people are are those that are least willing and able to see their own faults.
"What's the Power Plan Stan."
Right now appears to be a time of significant political opportunity for for the populist right. Key, but often opaque institutional centers of power (like the FBI) are vying for greater degrees of dominance within multiple, and often hidden but overlapping and competing power networks ( like Intelligence/Big Tech/Federal Reserve) that appear collectively responsible for the real continuity of American foreign and domestic Policy.
The question of what particular individuals and organizations (both public and private) are now really in charge (with the increasing absence of President Biden) are becoming more and more paramount.
Over the last number of decades the grass-roots populist right along with some theorists like Michael Lind and Joel Kotkin) have developed increasingly sophisticated descriptions of such emerging power centers, making up what is now called the new class or the managerial class or the administrative class (also see earlier descriptions like that of James Burnham "The Managerial Revolution" (1949) and Daniel Bell "The Coming Post-Industrial Society: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976).
The underlying notion of class contained within this new class populist right perspective may now have a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to gain legitimacy as a more accurate description of contemporary political reality than the hopefully, temporarily outmoded separation of powers model (Congress, Executive Branch and the Courts running things)-- which along with federalism, decentralization, entrepreneurial capitalism as well as a culture of limits-- still strikes me as an aspirational political model worth pursuing as we attempt to return to our roots.
Brilliant: virtuals versus physicals a Redux.
The dead white guy was James Madison and the Arab thought lleader is Osama bin Laden.
Curtis Yarvin is doing an elves versus hobbits schtick. He’s done about 4 rather long and of course confusing posts primarily on what motivates elves (A) but for the hobbits (B) all he says is “they just want to grill”.
I’m going to make all my friends read this public service announcement, that should make me popular.
Class A stands silent while their authoritarian Covid response and underhanded Great Reset kill 100-1 compared to the virus, which with food shortages looming, it could go to 1000-1. And they will still stand silent except to denounce and condemn Class-B.
How many have to die, i wonder.
The Republicans sold out their voters for tax-cuts.