Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 11:01 pmIf one "roots around" on the internet, one can find support for all sorts of preposterous and unlikely conspiracy theories. Are these sources more reliable than the mainstream media? Nope. Unless one simply wants to confirm preconceived notions.
Let's see. Perhaps the "total silence" surrounding the probable role of Mossad in Kennedy's assassination results from nobody thinking it happened (except Unz and Jacobi). I'm amazed there's near-total silence about the moon being made of green cheese, these days, too. It must be a conspiracy!
This morning I was thinking over what we have recently been discussing and had a few thoughts.
First, it should be interesting to all to notice how our views of contemporary politics and social-ideological conflicts seem always to take shape through polarized positions. These positions mirror the differences that play out in contemporary society. The conversation becomes interesting when the bases of political and ideological positions are examined *philosophically* but boring when conversation falls apart and into the typical *bickering* positions.
The recent event -- and what an event it was! -- of the terrible failure of President Biden before a national and world audience seems to me an event of tremendous consequence. My view is that IC has done a very good job at expounding how the MSM has supported and propagated a set of untruths and lies which, and this is my impression, now seem to be on the verge of collapse. Let me give my impression of how this has come about. My impression about *what is happening* at large in our culture now is that a turning has begun.
To put it in simple terms I say that many people feel and believe that *things have gone too far*. I could reference, say, James Lindsay's activist discourse on the topic as a base-point for a sociological and ideological analysis of where things and how things have *gone off the rails*, but doing that -- who among the opposition (here) would be convinced? My reference points -- any reference to what is
normal -- would be challenged by those with more radical social and ideological positions. Take for example Kropotkin who, though logorrheaic, certainly does attempt to define and defend (what I understand to be) the general social trend of the Left-Progressive faction in America. I mention him because I seek a figure who could be said to be representative of this social and ideological trend which I believe cannot be seen except as a form of radicalism.
But with that said I wanted to make some comments about another trend that is taking shape. It is perhaps hard to define it exactly so one must approach it in stages. First, I think we have to clarify that we indeed live in a Liberal culture. If anything defines America it is that. But when I say that people believe that *things have gone too far* I would need to modify the word Liberal into *Hyper-Liberal* or *Over-Liberal*. I have quoted Tomislav Sunic's view that "Communism rotted the body but Liberalism rots the soul".
"Liberalism rots the soul"-- What does this mean? What
can it mean?
But if I declare that American Liberalism is *rotted* won't it happen that all the defenders, including you Alexiev, will rally to assert that I must certainly be some sort of Nazi lunatic interested in destroying all our fine traditions of liberty? Isn't that how the argument always goes?
I have to make it plain -- really in fairness to anyone reading what I write -- that I have consciously and intentionally studied the ideological positions of people on the far side of Conservatism. I would have to say radical and even revolutionary Conservatism. But I must also make it plain that I have also investigated the very opposite of these positions, and as a reference-point I would refer to Noam Chomsky. But for the revolutionary Conservatives consider René Guénon, Julius Evola, and others within this category.
What interested me about your comment: "If one "roots around" on the internet, one can find support for all sorts of preposterous and unlikely conspiracy theories" is that, while it is true in one real sense, I was not proposing access to bizarre, ungrounded, largely lunatic, wild and overheated interpretive positions. I was referring to thoughtful intellectuals or historians who have undertaken a project of review of the established narratives that inform our thinking. This does bring me to my main point: and that is that we are in a time of tremendous revision of the standard historical and interpretive models that have and that do inform our perspectives.
So if I say: The MSM is the engine, or the main purveyor of positions of this established sort, but that really I have to make reference to the Academy and the formulation of perspectives, and as well to another interesting idea: America's civil religion -- by doing so I separate myself from it to a degree that makes it possible to examine *it* from a philosophical distance. Is that
legitimate or is it rather comparable to
thoughtcrime?
Here I want to reference what you wrote on another thread:
"Liberal" has become a dirty word in the U.S. In Canada and the U.K, it has become associated with a political party (often an unsuccessful one). But in the U.S, the right wingers castigate "libtards" and the progressives think liberals are weak, mamby pambies with no convictions.
I disagree. "Progressive" has always smacked of a doctrinaire, authoritative view of "progress". We must all see "progress" in the same way, and toe the line when it comes to the methods of achieving it. The word (if not the movement) makes me envision jack boots, progressing in unison toward the glowing goal.
"Liberal", on the other hand, implies an open-minded generosity (based on the meaning of the word). Why liberals have been bullied into avoiding the term escapes me.
I think I have some insight into why the word is contaminated. I will try to explain. In my own view it is that we have progressed from Liberalism grounded on a sane foundation to what I refer to as Hyper-Liberalism. It is a perversion of the realistic and grounded idea of Liberalism. And people, standing before outrageous and offensive excesses,
root around for alternative bases for an ideological position upon which to construct a modus for the living of their lives. The word *root* is the operative one. Because you have to define a platform that is rooted and grounded in a sound ideological position.
I think that many who are Progressive Radicals or simple Progressive Liberals
do not understand what is going on and what has gone on intellectually and ideologically among theorists of a radical Conservative sort. I do
not mean so-called
Cuckservatives, I mean theorists of actual radical Conservatism.
So my point is really this: What seems to be happening is that there is a movement that questions a great deal, and perhaps even everything, pertinent to the *present dispensation*. It seems to me that if this is clarified it will help everyone to better understand *what is going on today*.
