Sep 12Liked by Phisto Sobanii, Alexandru Constantin, Prester John's Revenge
Discussion at about 1:15:00 really gets at the problem of the historically-illiterate, thought-terminating Right.
It's communism! It's capitalism! It's liberalism!
It's none of these things. It's (something like) a condition of captive alienation--permanently deadened yet permanently outraged--in a recurring present of ugliness both horrifying and mundane, leavened by faux-optimism and the freedom to consoom an ever-increasing range of ever lower-quality goods and services. It's a condition of spiritual and psychological solitary imprisonment, with dull inhuman mediocrity and trivial gross ephemerality as the jailers.
From the perspective of those who manage or merely approve of it (called 'leftists', which they're really not), this is self-consciously a New Thing. It's not communism or capitalism or liberalism. Although it unavoidably inherits or incoporates some features of prior models of human social organisation, it does so kind of...reluctantly. It is dismissive or even hateful of the past. It is aggressively historically illiterate.
Accordingly, few people who 'believe in' the New Thing and call themselves liberals or communists (do people even call themselves communists?) really know much about or identify with the realities of liberalism or communism. They're *wilful* historical illiterates who identify selectively with much-reduced abstractions ('celebrating difference' = being a liberal; 'top-down imposition of absolute equality with no private property' = being a communist).
Rightwingers who call themselves traditionalists or pagans are also selective followers of -isms. The difference between them and the 'left' is that they despise the present (wrongly identified with partial abstractions of liberalism/communism/capitalism) while adoring and in many cases assiduously studying the past. But in order to adore the past, as to adore God or a woman, it's not necessarily to understand it; in fact, it's often the case that the more a thing is understood the less it can be adored. Out of desperation and the need for faith, rightists choose adoration over understanding almost every time; that of history which inhibits adoration is disregarded. Neither do most rightists, in common with most 'leftists', understand themselves as historical beings.
So most RW 'pagans' and 'traditionalists' are, like the 'left', in a functional sense historically illiterate--even as they love the past just as much as the 'left' hates it. They derive their identities from rejecting one set of partial abstractions and adoring another. Further, because their paganism/traditionalism is unavoidably mediated by the inheritance of intervening time, it can never more than partially represent the historical reality of 'traditional' (whatever that means) or 'pagan' lifeways. Show me a 'pagan' who is free of the influence of 2,000 years of Christianity. There's no escaping 'the historicity of being'.
TL;DR: You're right that it's historically illiterate and thought-terminating to call the New Thing communism, capitalism or liberalism; 'identifying' as a pagan or traditionalist is also a product of historical illiteracy.
PS: You're sort of half right about Gallipoli. British troops were sent to die just as carelessly as were ANZACS or Canadians. Neither Australia nor New Zealand broke with Britain over it; there was some increase in anti-British sentiment, but both countries remained sentimentally (because ethnically) and economically extensions of Britain until at least WWII.
Excellent points, fully agree. It's time we move past 20th century labels. Also, because the Gallipoli thing was more of a thought that came to me I muddled up what I meant. Im under the impression that after Gallipoli the ANZAC no longer put their troops under direct British control. That's what I meant.
At Gallipoli they were respectively under Australian and New Zealander generalship but the high command was British. As far as I know it was the same throughout the war and in the Mediterranean theatre in WWII. I could be wrong, but that's how I remember it.
Excellent points, fully agree. It's time we move past 20th century labels. Also, because the Gallipoli thing was more of a thought that came to me I muddled up what I meant. Im under the impression that after Gallipoli the ANZAC no longer put their troops under direct British control. That's what I meant.
Sep 12Liked by Phisto Sobanii, Alexandru Constantin, Prester John's Revenge
I had two great teachers in high school that were formative to my love of history. I can credit them for instilling in me the belief that history is vitally important, even when I realized that going to school to become an engineer was a better decision financially.
There was an attempt in 2020 to discredit our entire history education as racist. For instance, they were unhappy that Thanksgiving was "whitewashed" to kindergarteners and that Ibram X. Kendi was not being taught. This led me to deep dive (not as deep as some, but far beyond surface level) into history and determine just how bad it was. I figured it wasn't, but I thought I might as well "do the work." This process has given me a far greater appreciation for history teachers. I read something like 20 books (some partially) and half a dozen articles just to get to 1676, and I still felt like I was woefully under-read.
All of this to say, Phisto, it's great to hear that you are the teacher that these kids will remember forever.
Sep 13·edited Sep 13Liked by Phisto Sobanii, Prester John's Revenge
Great episode!
I know I am going to get crap for this but I want to play devil's advocate on the whole Tucker/Cooper situation. From a purely historical perspective, evil exists on both sides of every conflict and Cooper is technically right.
As an Orthodox Jewish person, I am noticing that the issue my community has with Cooper isn't about the facts per se. It is with the overall pattern of people (especially Tucker, Candace, Dan Bilzerian etc.) highlighting and popularizing narratives that are negative for the Jewish community despite being factually correct. It is easy to paint millions of people with a broad brush by highlighting the actions of a few rotten apples that may be powerful.
While facts are amoral, it is frightening to see those facts being focused on. Our community agrees that Hollywood and many banking institutions are run by Jews (albeit secular, Jews in name only libs aka Soros. None of the Rothschilds are considered Jewish anymore according to Jewish laws of genealogy).
There was a certain amount of comfort that we felt when we were protected by a one-sided WW2 narrative that painted the Nazis as monsters.
Every repression and genocide that was perpetrated against us used convenient picked facts to justify them
Not everyone that notices these facts hate Jews but everyone who hates Jews points out these facts.
Very well put and thanks for your input. Yes, it's a very difficult topic to discuss which I think I tried to touch on. You don't want to be misunderstood as having Nazi sympathies, but at the same time getting away from the myth of WWII to soberly see the cause is important. "the Nazis did the Holocaust because they are evil and hated Jews" is ultimately unhelpful because it puts it on personal morality as opposed to trends and forces that we can all be subject to. It's easy to say "never again" when that boils down to not being a Nazi (which has become a cartoon), but that cartoon can become so influential that the things that led to the oppression of Jews or other groups can still exist in other forms.
This is an excellent point and one I’ve been thinking about myself. I will write up my answer soon, still driving around town and I think this deserves something more in depth, but I just wanted to acknowledge it.
Sep 13Liked by Phisto Sobanii, Alexandru Constantin
Alex, thanks for really hammering home how both sides can be evil in war. I think a lot of people forget that. There doesn't have to be a good side, and all death, killing, is evil.
That doesn't mean the front line guys, that buy the state propaganda are always culpable.
But we need to hold states, and statesmen, to high standards, and be able to honestly talk about history.
Sep 12·edited Sep 12Liked by Phisto Sobanii, Alexandru Constantin, Prester John's Revenge
Damn, I was hoping you would have dropped this in the middle of my work day. Oh well it gives me something to pass the time tomorrow. I will listen to it between working and secretly refreshing my machining knowledge.
Sep 12Liked by Phisto Sobanii, Alexandru Constantin
Alex, I am disappointed in you. This whole time you left out the best part of Disco Elysium. For those of you who don’t know, in the game all your skills are not just abilities or parts of your psyche. They are their own distinct characters.
For example, Encyclopedia is that one ADHD nerd that is great at Jeopardy but usually has nothing relevant to whatever important is happening right now.
Half-Light is the aggressive asshole part of your personality. Physical Instrument is your raw physical power. You need to beat someone up, you need both of them. Now you can also just have Half-Light by itself for the magical ability to constantly and hilariously write checks your ass can’t cash.
Your skills also do things like allow you to tell if someone is lying in the middle of a conversation. They can also suggest you do insane and stupid shit. The best part is they argue with each other constantly pulling you in different directions.
Oh yeah, you forgot to mention just how hilarious the writing in this game is.
Same, I got rid of my Netflix a long time ago too and my Hulu (probably for the same reasons). It really is worth a watch though. Where 2077 focuses on the important philosophical questions of living in a cyberpunk world, Edgerunners focuses on the smaller no less important human ones. I think you can get the series for like $30 on blu-ray now.
Sep 14Liked by Phisto Sobanii, Alexandru Constantin
As always an awesome episode. It was cool to hear from Prestor John. The concept of a pure good guy is such a rarity in history, and Churchill is definitely not one of them.
If you wanna talk about alotta video games I'd love to come on and chat about em.
Discussion at about 1:15:00 really gets at the problem of the historically-illiterate, thought-terminating Right.
It's communism! It's capitalism! It's liberalism!
It's none of these things. It's (something like) a condition of captive alienation--permanently deadened yet permanently outraged--in a recurring present of ugliness both horrifying and mundane, leavened by faux-optimism and the freedom to consoom an ever-increasing range of ever lower-quality goods and services. It's a condition of spiritual and psychological solitary imprisonment, with dull inhuman mediocrity and trivial gross ephemerality as the jailers.
From the perspective of those who manage or merely approve of it (called 'leftists', which they're really not), this is self-consciously a New Thing. It's not communism or capitalism or liberalism. Although it unavoidably inherits or incoporates some features of prior models of human social organisation, it does so kind of...reluctantly. It is dismissive or even hateful of the past. It is aggressively historically illiterate.
Accordingly, few people who 'believe in' the New Thing and call themselves liberals or communists (do people even call themselves communists?) really know much about or identify with the realities of liberalism or communism. They're *wilful* historical illiterates who identify selectively with much-reduced abstractions ('celebrating difference' = being a liberal; 'top-down imposition of absolute equality with no private property' = being a communist).
Rightwingers who call themselves traditionalists or pagans are also selective followers of -isms. The difference between them and the 'left' is that they despise the present (wrongly identified with partial abstractions of liberalism/communism/capitalism) while adoring and in many cases assiduously studying the past. But in order to adore the past, as to adore God or a woman, it's not necessarily to understand it; in fact, it's often the case that the more a thing is understood the less it can be adored. Out of desperation and the need for faith, rightists choose adoration over understanding almost every time; that of history which inhibits adoration is disregarded. Neither do most rightists, in common with most 'leftists', understand themselves as historical beings.
So most RW 'pagans' and 'traditionalists' are, like the 'left', in a functional sense historically illiterate--even as they love the past just as much as the 'left' hates it. They derive their identities from rejecting one set of partial abstractions and adoring another. Further, because their paganism/traditionalism is unavoidably mediated by the inheritance of intervening time, it can never more than partially represent the historical reality of 'traditional' (whatever that means) or 'pagan' lifeways. Show me a 'pagan' who is free of the influence of 2,000 years of Christianity. There's no escaping 'the historicity of being'.
TL;DR: You're right that it's historically illiterate and thought-terminating to call the New Thing communism, capitalism or liberalism; 'identifying' as a pagan or traditionalist is also a product of historical illiteracy.
PS: You're sort of half right about Gallipoli. British troops were sent to die just as carelessly as were ANZACS or Canadians. Neither Australia nor New Zealand broke with Britain over it; there was some increase in anti-British sentiment, but both countries remained sentimentally (because ethnically) and economically extensions of Britain until at least WWII.
Excellent points, fully agree. It's time we move past 20th century labels. Also, because the Gallipoli thing was more of a thought that came to me I muddled up what I meant. Im under the impression that after Gallipoli the ANZAC no longer put their troops under direct British control. That's what I meant.
At Gallipoli they were respectively under Australian and New Zealander generalship but the high command was British. As far as I know it was the same throughout the war and in the Mediterranean theatre in WWII. I could be wrong, but that's how I remember it.
Excellent points, fully agree. It's time we move past 20th century labels. Also, because the Gallipoli thing was more of a thought that came to me I muddled up what I meant. Im under the impression that after Gallipoli the ANZAC no longer put their troops under direct British control. That's what I meant.
I had two great teachers in high school that were formative to my love of history. I can credit them for instilling in me the belief that history is vitally important, even when I realized that going to school to become an engineer was a better decision financially.
There was an attempt in 2020 to discredit our entire history education as racist. For instance, they were unhappy that Thanksgiving was "whitewashed" to kindergarteners and that Ibram X. Kendi was not being taught. This led me to deep dive (not as deep as some, but far beyond surface level) into history and determine just how bad it was. I figured it wasn't, but I thought I might as well "do the work." This process has given me a far greater appreciation for history teachers. I read something like 20 books (some partially) and half a dozen articles just to get to 1676, and I still felt like I was woefully under-read.
All of this to say, Phisto, it's great to hear that you are the teacher that these kids will remember forever.
“she-hag feminist mutant” made me audibly laugh
You know exactly the kind of person I'm describing.
sadly I have had my fair share of experiences with them too
Alright. Time to listen to you 3 feygeles.
Great talk! Love to see it!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great episode!
I know I am going to get crap for this but I want to play devil's advocate on the whole Tucker/Cooper situation. From a purely historical perspective, evil exists on both sides of every conflict and Cooper is technically right.
As an Orthodox Jewish person, I am noticing that the issue my community has with Cooper isn't about the facts per se. It is with the overall pattern of people (especially Tucker, Candace, Dan Bilzerian etc.) highlighting and popularizing narratives that are negative for the Jewish community despite being factually correct. It is easy to paint millions of people with a broad brush by highlighting the actions of a few rotten apples that may be powerful.
some examples
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lmoqu1p758
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74ZA-GdeQP4
https://x.com/DanBilzerian/status/1825211759906693465?lang=en
While facts are amoral, it is frightening to see those facts being focused on. Our community agrees that Hollywood and many banking institutions are run by Jews (albeit secular, Jews in name only libs aka Soros. None of the Rothschilds are considered Jewish anymore according to Jewish laws of genealogy).
There was a certain amount of comfort that we felt when we were protected by a one-sided WW2 narrative that painted the Nazis as monsters.
Every repression and genocide that was perpetrated against us used convenient picked facts to justify them
Not everyone that notices these facts hate Jews but everyone who hates Jews points out these facts.
Would love to hear your take.
Very well put and thanks for your input. Yes, it's a very difficult topic to discuss which I think I tried to touch on. You don't want to be misunderstood as having Nazi sympathies, but at the same time getting away from the myth of WWII to soberly see the cause is important. "the Nazis did the Holocaust because they are evil and hated Jews" is ultimately unhelpful because it puts it on personal morality as opposed to trends and forces that we can all be subject to. It's easy to say "never again" when that boils down to not being a Nazi (which has become a cartoon), but that cartoon can become so influential that the things that led to the oppression of Jews or other groups can still exist in other forms.
“Never again” has become useless because we think it’ll happen exactly as the myth imagines it did in the 1940s.
It’s become a finished product, which as we know, are only for degenerate minds.
Well said.
Precisely.
Nuance is lacking in emotional conversations.
This is an excellent point and one I’ve been thinking about myself. I will write up my answer soon, still driving around town and I think this deserves something more in depth, but I just wanted to acknowledge it.
Thanks.
I appreciate the attention to nuance in this podcast/substack.
Hard to find in this age...
Alex, thanks for really hammering home how both sides can be evil in war. I think a lot of people forget that. There doesn't have to be a good side, and all death, killing, is evil.
That doesn't mean the front line guys, that buy the state propaganda are always culpable.
But we need to hold states, and statesmen, to high standards, and be able to honestly talk about history.
Damn, I was hoping you would have dropped this in the middle of my work day. Oh well it gives me something to pass the time tomorrow. I will listen to it between working and secretly refreshing my machining knowledge.
I need to work out a better schedule but between my daytime job and family my life is chaotic right now lol.
Alex, I am disappointed in you. This whole time you left out the best part of Disco Elysium. For those of you who don’t know, in the game all your skills are not just abilities or parts of your psyche. They are their own distinct characters.
For example, Encyclopedia is that one ADHD nerd that is great at Jeopardy but usually has nothing relevant to whatever important is happening right now.
Half-Light is the aggressive asshole part of your personality. Physical Instrument is your raw physical power. You need to beat someone up, you need both of them. Now you can also just have Half-Light by itself for the magical ability to constantly and hilariously write checks your ass can’t cash.
Your skills also do things like allow you to tell if someone is lying in the middle of a conversation. They can also suggest you do insane and stupid shit. The best part is they argue with each other constantly pulling you in different directions.
Oh yeah, you forgot to mention just how hilarious the writing in this game is.
I'm saving that for the actual episode!!
Just out of curiosity, have you checked out Cyberpunk: Edgerunners yet? It makes a great compliment to the game.
Unfortunately no, I've heard a lot of good things about it from people, but I canceled my Netflix awhile back.
Same, I got rid of my Netflix a long time ago too and my Hulu (probably for the same reasons). It really is worth a watch though. Where 2077 focuses on the important philosophical questions of living in a cyberpunk world, Edgerunners focuses on the smaller no less important human ones. I think you can get the series for like $30 on blu-ray now.
Glad you guys are in the fight. Keep the faith. You’re making an impact
As always an awesome episode. It was cool to hear from Prestor John. The concept of a pure good guy is such a rarity in history, and Churchill is definitely not one of them.
If you wanna talk about alotta video games I'd love to come on and chat about em.
I just wish I could read transcrptis of you guys. I can’t hear much.
Are there audio issues?
I'll try to make it happen.
Phisto you’re that teacher that imprints on people for their whole life. In only 3 years of teaching.
…too bad you don’t have a PhD
PhDeez nutz