Elections in various countries

[MacAnDàil]

Rotting Bones: That clarifies things. It really did seem like you were valuing stupidity.

To be fair, I do tend to hate smart people. There are very few problems that can't be solved by lobotomizing the geniuses. However, this argument in particular doesn't necessarily have anything to do with that.

I tend to hate smart people when they eat up all cultural forms with pretensions to elitism. 1. Adorno argued that jazz props up unjust power structures while he himself loved European classical music. 2. Daniel Haqiqatjou is a Harvard graduate who says he wants to promote traditional Islamic culture, but what he actually promotes is ELITE Muslim culture. Belly dancing, ribald jokes and Islamic folk songs are undignified. ...

I don't think Adorno or Haqiqatjou are representative of smart people because there are so many people out there with similar or higher intellectual level without those ideas.

[Travis B.]

I would not equate "smart" people with "elitist" people per se, but I might equate many people who think they are "smart" with such. Note that plenty of actually smart people lack such pretensions (and actually smart people are notorious for underestimating their own intelligence, the converse of how people who lack intelligence often overestimate their own intelligence - see the Dunning-Kruger effect).

[rotting bones]

I don't think Adorno or Haqiqatjou are representative of smart people because there are so many people out there with similar or higher intellectual level without those ideas.

That's true, I wouldn't be reading so many books if I hated all smart people.

On the other hand, is a promoter of belly dancing ever presented as a representative of the Islam? See Patrick Boyle making fun of Harry Potter fans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTFhnpf-IE0 Why is Jordan Peterson still popular? And remember what Sal was like?

These days, my go-to response to people like that has become, "Let me lobotomize away your pain." I'm thinking of carrying a long spoon with me to demonstrate.

I would not equate "smart" people with "elitist" people per se, but I might equate many people who think they are "smart" with such. Note that plenty of actually smart people lack such pretensions (and actually smart people are notorious for underestimating their own intelligence, the converse of how people who lack intelligence often overestimate their own intelligence - see the Dunning-Kruger effect).

The way I see it, the whole discourse around "intelligence" is, to a large extent, a performative dimension. Literacy and numeracy are good things, and these are definitely facilitated by the ability to manipulate symbols.

[rotting bones]

Ugh, Baudrillard. Ignore him. Among many other faults, he's unscientific.

Are postmodernists metaphysically incapable of being relevant even when they say useful things? Before I rediscovered Baudrillard, I was slowly becoming a TV addict. Reading a hated Postmodern Neo-Marxist is one of the few things that get me out of bed in the morning even though I barely agree with anything he says. In reality, Baudrillard is a promoter of Capitalist Realism, but he helps me make sense of my dystopian reality. For example, I thought he very reasonably points out that to refuse the contemporary spin towards ecstasy and decide to re-enter a world of meaning is to choose a life of endless tragedy as the world's excrescent power tears your petty little meaningfulness into shreds.

(For starters, ignorant masses? If he'd ever left Saint Germain des Prés he'd have realized there's no such thing.)

I don't know, the majority that re-elected Modi with a historic mandate doesn't quite seem sapient to me. Then again, who can be trusted to pick a responsible leader when literally every candidate is on a corporate payroll? But what gets me is that these so-called geniuses keep supporting this system of representative democracy despite seeing the results. After humanity has apparently decided to stop making sense, why do I have to keep running after them, feeding them basic rationality in homeopathic doses, only to have them laugh at me? At least Baudrillard has the self-awareness to call himself a pataphysician, and he's wrong more gloriously than these so-called geniuses can ever dream of being.

[Ares Land]

Are postmodernists metaphysically incapable of being relevant even when they say useful things?

Again, to each their own. To me Baudrillard seems completely divorced from reality.

I don't know, the majority that re-elected Modi with a historic mandate doesn't quite seem sapient to me. Then again, who can be trusted to pick a responsible leader when literally every candidate is on a corporate payroll? But what gets me is that these so-called geniuses keep supporting this system of representative democracy despite seeing the results.

I don't know enough about Indian politics to comment on Modi's reelection.

But of course we've all wondered, at one point or another, what the voters were thinking. We should keep in mind (and you mention it yourself) that voters have to pick from an often dispappointing pool of candidates. Plus they have to make a decision on the basis of incomplete information and their votes are counted with an heavily biased system. Taking all of this into account, the average voter isn't doing that badly.

[Raphael]

Reading a hated Postmodern Neo-Marxist

I'd say that a postmodern Marxist, neo or not, is a contradiction in terms. Marxism teaches that everything in the world is the result of material factors, and aspects of culture are the result of underlying material conditions. Postmodernism teaches that everything in the world is the result of cultural constructs, and perceptions of material conditions are themselves the results of cultural factors. Sure, there might be people who see themselves as postmodern Marxists, but that just shows that the world is full of confused thinkers who haven't really thought their own positions through.

[rotting bones]

I'd say that a postmodern Marxist, neo or not, is a contradiction in terms. Marxism teaches that everything in the world is the result of material factors, and aspects of culture are the result of underlying material conditions. Postmodernism teaches that everything in the world is the result of cultural constructs, and perceptions of material conditions are themselves the results of cultural factors. Sure, there might be people who see themselves as postmodern Marxists, but that just shows that the world is full of confused thinkers who haven't really thought their own positions through.

It's a dog whistle for Jew used by the far right. Baudrillard is a proponent of Capitalist Realism, and IIRC also not Jewish. But since when has that stopped uneducated mad "geniuses" from associating ideas in their heads? Derrida was Jewish, which was probably why he gets most of the flak.

Maybe we should create a rumor of a secret tome of horror for the illiterates and spread it within QAnon. It needs a suitably terrible name like The Gospel of Despair by Karl "Postmodern" Neo-Marx.

[rotting bones]

Again, to each their own. To me Baudrillard seems completely divorced from reality.

True enough, but all religions are wrong, and I'm not against those.

The main reason I like Baudrillard is that the people I hate hate him. The more they hate him, the more I warm up to him. Even though, rationally speaking, I should just let the postmodernists and the reactionaries annihilate each other since they're basically on the same side. If you look at the content of Baudrillard's work, it's almost like he's trying to forge a path towards something like Hinduism with the Marxist tradition as his starting point. Since that project makes no sense, neither does his work. But as someone with an interest in both Marxism and Hinduism, his work is also interesting.

Another reason I feel an urge to defend him is that I don't understand how being wrong makes him worse than the people who criticize him. Those people are aggressively wrong. They flaunt their wrongness in your face, and laugh at anyone who's actually trying to get it right. At least Baudrillard is self-aware in his wrongness.

If Baudrillard has anything to "teach", it would be things like how to gracefully not care about being wrong, and how to be wrong seductively.

[Ares Land]

The main reason I like Baudrillard is that the people I hate hate him.

I can't say I really hate him. I'm mostly amused at the fact that, like many of our intellectuals, he's decidedly out of fashion at home but people still feel he's relevant abroad.

[alice]

Do we need a post-modernism thread? It could be interesting on a meta level.

Meanwhile, how does the ZBB feel about Trump's inexorable return to power?

[bradrn]

Meanwhile, how does the ZBB feel about Trump's inexorable return to power?

I don’t feel it’s inexorable.

[zompist]

Do we need a post-modernism thread? It could be interesting on a meta level.

Meanwhile, how does the ZBB feel about Trump's inexorable return to power?

I dunno, how do you feel about Sunak inexorably winning the next election?

[Man in Space]

Do we need a post-modernism thread? It could be interesting on a meta level.

Meanwhile, how does the ZBB feel about Trump's inexorable return to power?

I dunno, how do you feel about Sunak inexorably winning the next election?

I misread that as Surak and thought, well, this would be an improvement.

[Ares Land]

I actually have the vague feeling that utterly insane conservativism might be on its way out.

[Travis B.]

Meanwhile, how does the ZBB feel about Trump's inexorable return to power?

I don’t feel it’s inexorable.

See the next two years as being a lot of infighting between pro-Trump and pro-DeSantis factions myself.

Personally, I see DeSantis as being more electable in the general election, but Trump still having a lot of support from the rabid Republican base, which could very well win him the primaries.

[Civil War Bugle]

My hope is that Trump and De Santis eat each other alive, metaphorically speaking, during the primary season, and thereby ruin the chances of whichever of them comes out on top. Barring further developments which render such a prediction moot.

[malloc]

I don't understand why everyone is saying the GOP lost this election. They won the house and that's all they need to stop the Democrats and even sabotage them. Literally zero progress will happen over the next few years and things will almost certainly get far worse.

[Civil War Bugle]

I don't understand why everyone is saying the GOP lost this election. They won the house and that's all they need to stop the Democrats and even sabotage them. Literally zero progress will happen over the next few years and things will almost certainly get far worse.

I would basically say it's because of two things: they didn't meet the expectations everyone had before the elections, when there were lots of predictions that they'd win BIG, and they only got the House, which means that Biden has room on things like judicial and major executive appointments where he only needs approval of the Senate. Plus a dash of the fact that underperforming expectations can make you look bad the next time you are running in an election.

I'm not happy that they won the House, but it's better than it could be.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I'm somewhat relieved it didn't end up worse. I've heard it described as a "red trickle", which I find amusing.

[zompist]

We have a US politics thread... please use that for discussing US politics.