Once again I’m dismayed by the absence of second-tier heart to hit on re-read 🤦 The centuries-old entrenched paradigm virtually no one longer questions is one big heck of a boulder to shift! So very lucky your discovery of sleeper-function within Word fuelled the breakthrough to Michéan conceptual world. Doubly fascinating that still not directly, but rather through Benoist’s midwifery instead 😁🤸
That was an exceptionally insightful piece. Disentangling the lazy rhetoric of politics from the reality of historical experience is extraordinarily important. You provide your readership with clarity and accessible rigour...I cannot presently think of higher praise.
The games under way over the prospects of the right, and conservatism in particular, make work like your essential reading.
A good read, once again. I think I need to revisit every post here and make myself a few diagrams and flowcharts to help with my retention!
I cannot add much in the way of commentary on this instalment but I will provide an anecdote: a friend, retired professor of criminal psychology, recently emailed me that - although he is often mistaken as “left wing” - he has confirmed in his own mind that is is definitely “conservative”. How is he so sure? He found a Canadian group that advocates for population reduction that published an opinion piece on their website (which I don’t have handy, but I’ll post it when I get back to my computer) asserting that reducing global population is compatible with conservatism because by eliminating people the environment will be subsequently conserved. Is this opinion perhaps conflating conservatism (even as we inconsistently understand its meaning) with conservationism? Or is that too fine a distinction?
More evidence that casual use of these tribal-political signifiers is pretty close to useless. Though, of course, not everyone can be expected to run a substack where they can engage in a rolling long-term exploration of their own political categories: which, of course, I'm pretty much trying to do here. But, yes, that may be conservationism. Though a rather Malthusian form of it. ;-)
I've never read the book. I had a look; it's available used on Amazon for a modest $245. And appears to only be available in hardcover. So, since I've no library options at the moment, it could be some time before I have occasion to give it a read. I'll be curious to have a look at WS's summaries, though usually I prefer to already know the source when reading someone else's discussion of it. Thanks for the tip.
To follow up my comment above, the organization is CASSE ([the] Centre for Advancement of the Steady State Economy) and it is not Canadian; rather, it is US-based and appears to be directed significantly by retired CIA and government operatives - be that as it may. The article I referred to in my anecdote: https://steadystate.org/conservatives-and-the-steady-state-economy-a-natural-fit/
1/ the main idea of an initial difference between a 'socialism' valuing organic communities and a 'Progressive' left is sound
2/ acknowledging 1/ gets you very close to the third rail of contemporary culture - the NSDAP and the lying Jews who vilified and continue to vilify the German people and all European Christendom
3/ 'capitalism' is an ideology of conquest (power) and the worship of Mammon. Unregulated markets may be how it is sold to LOLbertarians, but capital-ism in practice is about government regulation of markets in order to ensure that international capital faces no real competition
4/ re use value v exchange value - the producer can only focus upon obsolescence instead of durability when external factors have already eliminated competition from the marketplace - for this, we must focus upon fractional-reserve banking, the limited liability corporation, and the ability of international capital to capture 'democratic' governments.
5/ again, we return to a necessary re-evalution of the Third Reich and its socialism in comparison to the rapacious technocratic societies of Anglo-America that set out to destroy it on behalf of international capital - it does us no good to continue to accept Jew lies about that era of European and World history because it is acceptance of those lies that has gotten us to the state of our disintegrating societies today.
Once again I’m dismayed by the absence of second-tier heart to hit on re-read 🤦 The centuries-old entrenched paradigm virtually no one longer questions is one big heck of a boulder to shift! So very lucky your discovery of sleeper-function within Word fuelled the breakthrough to Michéan conceptual world. Doubly fascinating that still not directly, but rather through Benoist’s midwifery instead 😁🤸
That was an exceptionally insightful piece. Disentangling the lazy rhetoric of politics from the reality of historical experience is extraordinarily important. You provide your readership with clarity and accessible rigour...I cannot presently think of higher praise.
The games under way over the prospects of the right, and conservatism in particular, make work like your essential reading.
Thank you for the kind words, Phillip.
A good read, once again. I think I need to revisit every post here and make myself a few diagrams and flowcharts to help with my retention!
I cannot add much in the way of commentary on this instalment but I will provide an anecdote: a friend, retired professor of criminal psychology, recently emailed me that - although he is often mistaken as “left wing” - he has confirmed in his own mind that is is definitely “conservative”. How is he so sure? He found a Canadian group that advocates for population reduction that published an opinion piece on their website (which I don’t have handy, but I’ll post it when I get back to my computer) asserting that reducing global population is compatible with conservatism because by eliminating people the environment will be subsequently conserved. Is this opinion perhaps conflating conservatism (even as we inconsistently understand its meaning) with conservationism? Or is that too fine a distinction?
More evidence that casual use of these tribal-political signifiers is pretty close to useless. Though, of course, not everyone can be expected to run a substack where they can engage in a rolling long-term exploration of their own political categories: which, of course, I'm pretty much trying to do here. But, yes, that may be conservationism. Though a rather Malthusian form of it. ;-)
Speaking of signifiers—useless or otherwise—what do you make of The Socialist Phenomenon by Igor Shafarevich? @WinstonSmith runs rolling serial summaries (now at Part 8 --> escapingmasspsychosis.substack.com/p/the-socialist-phenomenon-24).
I think I know who's in perfect position 'to provide robust commentary' Winston vocally eschews 😇
I've never read the book. I had a look; it's available used on Amazon for a modest $245. And appears to only be available in hardcover. So, since I've no library options at the moment, it could be some time before I have occasion to give it a read. I'll be curious to have a look at WS's summaries, though usually I prefer to already know the source when reading someone else's discussion of it. Thanks for the tip.
To follow up my comment above, the organization is CASSE ([the] Centre for Advancement of the Steady State Economy) and it is not Canadian; rather, it is US-based and appears to be directed significantly by retired CIA and government operatives - be that as it may. The article I referred to in my anecdote: https://steadystate.org/conservatives-and-the-steady-state-economy-a-natural-fit/
A few thoughts:
1/ the main idea of an initial difference between a 'socialism' valuing organic communities and a 'Progressive' left is sound
2/ acknowledging 1/ gets you very close to the third rail of contemporary culture - the NSDAP and the lying Jews who vilified and continue to vilify the German people and all European Christendom
3/ 'capitalism' is an ideology of conquest (power) and the worship of Mammon. Unregulated markets may be how it is sold to LOLbertarians, but capital-ism in practice is about government regulation of markets in order to ensure that international capital faces no real competition
4/ re use value v exchange value - the producer can only focus upon obsolescence instead of durability when external factors have already eliminated competition from the marketplace - for this, we must focus upon fractional-reserve banking, the limited liability corporation, and the ability of international capital to capture 'democratic' governments.
5/ again, we return to a necessary re-evalution of the Third Reich and its socialism in comparison to the rapacious technocratic societies of Anglo-America that set out to destroy it on behalf of international capital - it does us no good to continue to accept Jew lies about that era of European and World history because it is acceptance of those lies that has gotten us to the state of our disintegrating societies today.
Thanks.
Thank you for this.
fyi, and w/ apologies for being pedantic, "lightning", not "lightening" for rods. Your work deserves no spelling errors.
Thank you.