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Journal by Azuma Hazuki
Recently one of our frothier, crazier members, who is in my opinion a fascinating real-time case study of alt-right radicalization, posted a journal titled "Conservatism is the new counter-culture." The entry is...well, wrong on the face of it for reasons I will explain below, not to mention rambling, pointless, and demented.
First of all, by definition, conservatism cannot be "counterculture" because the very concept means to hold onto the status quo. Many self-described "conservatives" are actually reactionaries, which are the "let's blow up the observatory so no asteroid ever hits us!" types, and are either too dumb to know the difference or too evil to care and will use the word conservative to hide their actual intent. I am leaning toward the first. Nevertheless, a conservative by definition cannot be counterculture.
No, what we have here is reactionary backlash. It's another wave of the same kind of whiny crybaby temper tantrums people threw with the desegregation of public spaces, or the passage of Loving vs. Virginia, or the more recent passage of nationwide recognition of same-sex marriages: people who used to be the nation's punching bags now have (closer to...) equal rights in society, and the ones who used to be able to do anything from simply mocking them to discriminating against them for housing and jobs to outright killing them with few or no repercussions are asspained that they can't any longer.
And this reactionary backlash always follows a well-worn, drearily predictable pattern: demonizing twice as hard, insisting that equality under the law is actually special privilege, bitching and moaning that actually $GROUP are the bad guys and they (the complainers) are the real victims and the actual ones being discriminated against, all slathered with a heaping helping of pig-ignorant but incredibly loud wrongness about liberty and the First Amendment and family values and what have you.
The new demons-du-jour seem to be trans* people. I don't get it either, but Stonewall was barely 20 years before I was born, and even today there are people who will do anything from assault you to torture and kill you for being gay. For that reason, they have my support in general, even though I've had some really bad experiences with transwomen/MtFs and really only know transmen/FtMs (and all three of the ones I know are super-cool people and way less toxic as men than most cismen I know, somehow...).
Another thing I notice is that the specific pattern of accusations and charges leveled against the demonized group never changes: they're mentally ill, they're innately criminal and/or disordered, they're making society adapt to them instead of the other way around, they're loud and shrill, they're "shoving $DIFFERENCE down my throat," they're demanding special privileges, they're a tyrannical minority, and so on, and so forth. Crimes committed by any member of $GROUP are taken to be evidence that every member is the same way and, often, used to obscure or misdirect attention from the systematic injustices done to them. When they speak out, it's considered "troublemaking."
And at the heart of it all is, like I said above, plain ol' overprivileged resentment at not being able to divide the world into in-group and out-group and shit all over the out-group so easily any longer. It's not quite this simple of course; many people are "secondary racists" or "secondary gay/trans-haters," which is to say they have some very real economic or social grievances and have been convinced ("redpilled") that $GROUP is the cause of all their suffering by a few utter sociopaths who find their reactionary flailing useful (and perhaps amusing). Still, primary or secondary doesn't matter too much to the person whose life is made hell, or ended outright.
I don't know what to do about this. There are mind-disrupting memeplexes, "basilisks" as I've called them elsewhere, that seem able to permanently alter peoples' ability to relate to others different from them, and in many cases make them tacitly approve of if not outright participate in their ostracism, suffering, and deaths. As it is well-known that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, there are few options left and even fewer that don't have horrible side effects themselves.
First of all, by definition, conservatism cannot be "counterculture" because the very concept means to hold onto the status quo. Many self-described "conservatives" are actually reactionaries, which are the "let's blow up the observatory so no asteroid ever hits us!" types, and are either too dumb to know the difference or too evil to care and will use the word conservative to hide their actual intent. I am leaning toward the first. Nevertheless, a conservative by definition cannot be counterculture.
No, what we have here is reactionary backlash. It's another wave of the same kind of whiny crybaby temper tantrums people threw with the desegregation of public spaces, or the passage of Loving vs. Virginia, or the more recent passage of nationwide recognition of same-sex marriages: people who used to be the nation's punching bags now have (closer to...) equal rights in society, and the ones who used to be able to do anything from simply mocking them to discriminating against them for housing and jobs to outright killing them with few or no repercussions are asspained that they can't any longer.
And this reactionary backlash always follows a well-worn, drearily predictable pattern: demonizing twice as hard, insisting that equality under the law is actually special privilege, bitching and moaning that actually $GROUP are the bad guys and they (the complainers) are the real victims and the actual ones being discriminated against, all slathered with a heaping helping of pig-ignorant but incredibly loud wrongness about liberty and the First Amendment and family values and what have you.
The new demons-du-jour seem to be trans* people. I don't get it either, but Stonewall was barely 20 years before I was born, and even today there are people who will do anything from assault you to torture and kill you for being gay. For that reason, they have my support in general, even though I've had some really bad experiences with transwomen/MtFs and really only know transmen/FtMs (and all three of the ones I know are super-cool people and way less toxic as men than most cismen I know, somehow...).
Another thing I notice is that the specific pattern of accusations and charges leveled against the demonized group never changes: they're mentally ill, they're innately criminal and/or disordered, they're making society adapt to them instead of the other way around, they're loud and shrill, they're "shoving $DIFFERENCE down my throat," they're demanding special privileges, they're a tyrannical minority, and so on, and so forth. Crimes committed by any member of $GROUP are taken to be evidence that every member is the same way and, often, used to obscure or misdirect attention from the systematic injustices done to them. When they speak out, it's considered "troublemaking."
And at the heart of it all is, like I said above, plain ol' overprivileged resentment at not being able to divide the world into in-group and out-group and shit all over the out-group so easily any longer. It's not quite this simple of course; many people are "secondary racists" or "secondary gay/trans-haters," which is to say they have some very real economic or social grievances and have been convinced ("redpilled") that $GROUP is the cause of all their suffering by a few utter sociopaths who find their reactionary flailing useful (and perhaps amusing). Still, primary or secondary doesn't matter too much to the person whose life is made hell, or ended outright.
I don't know what to do about this. There are mind-disrupting memeplexes, "basilisks" as I've called them elsewhere, that seem able to permanently alter peoples' ability to relate to others different from them, and in many cases make them tacitly approve of if not outright participate in their ostracism, suffering, and deaths. As it is well-known that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, there are few options left and even fewer that don't have horrible side effects themselves.
No, Virginia, "conservatism" is not the new counter-culture
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
You auto buy now.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 30 2019, @04:22AM (5 children)
And?
Except of course, when they didn't.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 31 2019, @01:34AM (4 children)
Except, of course, that they fucking did by definition.
Using that example again, when SCOTUS approved same-sex marriage, that became the status quo. That is, the "new normal," in the sense of legally normative. At that point, the previous position became...well, previous. History. Meaning its partisans went from conservative ("hold the line") to reactionary ("bring back the line!").
This is not difficult. You just don't like reality. I'm almost tempted to find your address so I can send you pictures of the wedding when it happens :) Your bitter, empty little heart might just burst.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @02:35AM (3 children)
It's not that simple. Counterculture just means something that isn't the dominant culture. It's quite possible for conservatism to be the norm - but it's equally possible for conservatism to be an outlier.
Also, conservatism doesn't mean desperately clinging to the rock of the present in unholy horror of what the future might present; it supports change, in the form of gradual incrementalism. It's entirely possible for a conservative to look at a development in government and be horrified - or delighted.
For your statement here to be true:
"conservative" would have to be a synonym for "current", which is manifestly false. Furthermore, for this one to be true:
"conservatism" would have to be a synonym for "mainstream" which it even more obviously is not. Recently there was a study looking at the degree to which people on campuses lie about their political opinions and affiliations to avoid falling grades. It was not great for young conservatives, to say the least. That's not the sign of a mainstream philosophy proudly carrying the banner of victory.
Do you have any more analyses that are based on a better understanding of the words you keep using?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 08 2019, @08:22PM (2 children)
Oh, that's what those sonic booms were--moving goalposts, with occasional patches of whataboutism turbulence and large clouds of redefining words to mean what you want them to mean. Y'all have a bad habit of doing that.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @06:29AM (1 child)
Really? What got redefined? Conservative? That's a well-known, long-standing definition. It favours incremental, carefully chosen changes. Just because something changed doesn't mean that conservatives suddenly approve of it.
Counterculture? That's also a well-known definition, where you have a subculture that is in opposition to the dominant culture.
The basic idea that conservatives are being hounded and suppressed is pretty plausible - just look at deplatforming and cancel culture and all the rest of it. Is it an effective minority culture at this point? Maybe - it's certainly plausible, and they're arguably on the back foot. The idea isn't ridiculous.
But yes, conservative doesn't mean current, nor mainstream. You can have conservative positions that are clearly in opposition with current policies, and aren't mainstream.
So what, precisely, was wrong?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday September 10 2019, @02:28AM
All I'll say on that is, it sounds like the "conservatives" are annoyed their opponents are using their own tactics against them. Serves the lot of them right. Yeah, yeah, go on and "no true conservative" me all you want...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...