"Greenblatt is undoing the legacy and the decades of work that his much cleverer predecessors built"
Insofar as the ADL itself goes, but we can't celebrate as if the damage by it over the years is so simply undone. We have found soft flesh, what can we do to plunge the bayonet? If we don't have a bayonet to plunge then I'd expect it to be a priority to get one.
I disagreed with the beginning of your article โ many are so demoralized, that even when authentic wins occur, they declare: "This is pure containment! The enemy is letting us win! The enemy doesn't want to win, he wants to lose and play 4D chess to entrap us."
That sort of demoralized paranoia is the perspective of a dumbass.
But I agree with you completely โ systems of complete asymmetrical and centralized control are vulnerable to overreach, arrogance, and overconfidence.
That's what's happening now: a sophisticated matrix of Soft Power has been inherited by incompetent children who don't understand how to rule without antagonizing powerful enemies, and publicly alienating millions of frustrated, resentful citizens.
Power doesn't exist in abstract. There is no such thing as raw power. The idea of a raw, a-moral power is something of a Machiavellian-Nietzschean-Bismarckian myth; it's a mere aesthetic, a taste for immanent action. In reality, power always has a moral shape, a spiritual form, an ideological structureโthere is no abstract and transcendental 'power' operating independently, no raw fundamental energy that changes from form to form as it wishes; no, it is always and inherently conditioned, always formed. Again, this idea is a myth. The myth of so-called "realism"... which is only a peculiar aesthetic parading as a universal norm.
Plato's formula: morality forms power;... And Nietzsche's formula: power forms morality... โare equally correct. Morality is power expressing itself, yes, but power itself is moralised and moralising (even, paradoxically, when it behaves immorally).
I fully agree that if the "elite" or "regime" were clever, they would quickly pivot to the forming consensus of New Right western politicsโeminently embodied by Trump, Farage, Bolsanaro, Le Pen, Meloni, Orban and Putin... A return to the nation and a new nationalism, in contrast to a morally failing and bankrupt globalism which has only utilitarian goals and no spiritual ideal. The problem is that the "regime" or "elite" don't exist in that sense of raw power expressing itselfโthat is just an extension of the "realist" myth. They don't exist in the hypothesised "real world" โ they live in their own spiritual Maya which happens to have a political shape. The establishment can't make the required pivot (until perhaps they are forced to by civil revolt or war) because they simply don't have the imagination; all their 'power' is tied up in an ideological structure that has a life of its own. โThey can't make the necessary, intelligent political compromise. They can only demonise the heretics. It's a clash of gods, a holy war dressed up as secular politics. They refuse to accept that Trump is the saviour of the Zeitgeist because they believe they, their ideological principles, are eternal. They believe they are world-representatives. They don't even know that they are just one of history's many sects.
I follow left twitter very closely, and I can tell you that it's not just the click baity things like the Epoch (KMT) Times headlines. Minds are really being broken by the idea that the FBI would not step in and quash Mr Musk immediately for allowing (name your favorite scarecrow) back on Twitter- Kanye, Trump, Andrew Anglin- it makes no difference to the volume of the histrionics. Yet after the out-freakage, they remain on Twitter all the same.
"Greenblatt is undoing the legacy and the decades of work that his much cleverer predecessors built"
Insofar as the ADL itself goes, but we can't celebrate as if the damage by it over the years is so simply undone. We have found soft flesh, what can we do to plunge the bayonet? If we don't have a bayonet to plunge then I'd expect it to be a priority to get one.
Excellent piece.
I disagreed with the beginning of your article โ many are so demoralized, that even when authentic wins occur, they declare: "This is pure containment! The enemy is letting us win! The enemy doesn't want to win, he wants to lose and play 4D chess to entrap us."
That sort of demoralized paranoia is the perspective of a dumbass.
But I agree with you completely โ systems of complete asymmetrical and centralized control are vulnerable to overreach, arrogance, and overconfidence.
That's what's happening now: a sophisticated matrix of Soft Power has been inherited by incompetent children who don't understand how to rule without antagonizing powerful enemies, and publicly alienating millions of frustrated, resentful citizens.
Power doesn't exist in abstract. There is no such thing as raw power. The idea of a raw, a-moral power is something of a Machiavellian-Nietzschean-Bismarckian myth; it's a mere aesthetic, a taste for immanent action. In reality, power always has a moral shape, a spiritual form, an ideological structureโthere is no abstract and transcendental 'power' operating independently, no raw fundamental energy that changes from form to form as it wishes; no, it is always and inherently conditioned, always formed. Again, this idea is a myth. The myth of so-called "realism"... which is only a peculiar aesthetic parading as a universal norm.
Plato's formula: morality forms power;... And Nietzsche's formula: power forms morality... โare equally correct. Morality is power expressing itself, yes, but power itself is moralised and moralising (even, paradoxically, when it behaves immorally).
I fully agree that if the "elite" or "regime" were clever, they would quickly pivot to the forming consensus of New Right western politicsโeminently embodied by Trump, Farage, Bolsanaro, Le Pen, Meloni, Orban and Putin... A return to the nation and a new nationalism, in contrast to a morally failing and bankrupt globalism which has only utilitarian goals and no spiritual ideal. The problem is that the "regime" or "elite" don't exist in that sense of raw power expressing itselfโthat is just an extension of the "realist" myth. They don't exist in the hypothesised "real world" โ they live in their own spiritual Maya which happens to have a political shape. The establishment can't make the required pivot (until perhaps they are forced to by civil revolt or war) because they simply don't have the imagination; all their 'power' is tied up in an ideological structure that has a life of its own. โThey can't make the necessary, intelligent political compromise. They can only demonise the heretics. It's a clash of gods, a holy war dressed up as secular politics. They refuse to accept that Trump is the saviour of the Zeitgeist because they believe they, their ideological principles, are eternal. They believe they are world-representatives. They don't even know that they are just one of history's many sects.
Interesting and informative piece
Good.
I follow left twitter very closely, and I can tell you that it's not just the click baity things like the Epoch (KMT) Times headlines. Minds are really being broken by the idea that the FBI would not step in and quash Mr Musk immediately for allowing (name your favorite scarecrow) back on Twitter- Kanye, Trump, Andrew Anglin- it makes no difference to the volume of the histrionics. Yet after the out-freakage, they remain on Twitter all the same.