2020

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

Elon's pigs needing neural implants like another hole in the head.

The air being so clear that the full moon looked like a sphere.

The rise of the alt right on dissensus

 

[Mr. Tea]

The rise of the alt right on dissensus

Bigging yourself up, much?

 

[luka]

HMG is the Father of the Dissensus alt-right. Josef K is the prodigal son whose return we await.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

Bigging yourself up, much?

Not me, guv. I only did the blackpilling.

 

[Leo]

I don't think we have any serious, genuine alt-right members. Josef k was a weird outlier.

 

[Leo]

certainly not MAGA-level alt-right, or people who want to shoot BLM marchers.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Not me, guv. I only did the blackpilling.

Bit basic, m8. I'm ultravioletpilled now.

 

[constant escape]

I don't think we have any serious, genuine alt-right members. Josef k was a weird outlier.

Granted I haven't been here long, but I agree. I don't pick up that kind of presence here - but then again, my conception of alt-right might be limited. I think of it as a bit of a blanket label for the kind of outliers you mentioned (all the kek/pepe stuff, some/most of the conspiracy culture, actual supremacists, MAGA, QAnon, troll stuff, bleeding into incel territory, etc).

Does anyone here have a different understanding of what alt-right means, or who it refers to? It does seem to be a wildly heterogeneous bunch that fall outside the margins of the mainstream right (although arguably not, as of late). How has the right shifted in respect to the alt-right? Or has it, much?

Can we take the RNC as an appeal to the right, as opposed to the alt-right? Or has Trump actually enfranchised the alt-right enough to have them included in the target demographic? It may seem obviously, but worth a thought nonetheless.

Anyway, I don't see more than crypto-traces of that stuff here, intentionally or unintentionally - in my statements as well. Arguably, a lot of it might just be frustration with the excesses of cultural revisionism ("cancel culture"), which is, as far as I'm concerned, a perfectly reasonable frustration. I don't think it indicates bigotry or hatefulness - but I don't want to speak for everyone.

It might depend on whether or not one radically identifies with this frustration. That might be the ultimate distinction between alt-right, and critical-of-woke left. Coming from the left, I think this frustration has to be acknowledged, rather than repressed out of fear of cancellation, in the interest of... what? Individuation? Integration of the daemonic? In a less metaphysical sense, this acknowledgement might also be necessary to move forward, politico-ideologically.

Could it just be that we find ourselves in a stretch of rapids along the psychic energy river? Stretches switching between calm and excited?

 

[luka]

the way I think about the alt right is as the right being hooked up to its true libidinal engines again, racism mainly, and nationalism. Things it was forced to disavow post WWII, but what really gives it it's atavistic, vital pull.

 

[constant escape]

I see your point, a critical point I completely overlooked in my last post.

I guess that is where I would ask: is that kind of libido (I think into terms of a cosmic vitality) partisan? Or does it seek ground through the shortest of paths, regardless of party? Perhaps one's partisanship is not what determines the expression of their libido/energy, but what can repress it or force it or sublimate it into more acceptable, if suboptimal, expressions.

How can the libido that the alt-right is fueled by be sublimated in a less extreme-partisan way? There are answers, whether or not we stumble across them is another matter.

 

[constant escape]

Nationalism, racism, etc are tried and true - but I'll be damned if they aren't, if nothing else, low-hanging fruit. Beyond that, they are ethically detestable - but that is getting into partisan conclusions. The low-hanging fruit conclusion might not be partisan.

 

[luka]

What do you mean by partisan there. Sorry I'm having difficulty. Are you asking me if I think the life force itself has ideological commitments?

 

[constant escape]

Well I think it would be a tough argument, that life force / libido / vitality has, itself, ideological leanings (which is what I mean by partisan).

So I think, to clarify, we should focus on a more pertinent question: Once such a life force has gained partisan momentum, and can be identified as the force behind such-and-such particular ideology - can that momentum be diverted, rechanneled, into a different ideology?

By "seek ground" I mean seek the most unadulterated and pure expression it can (most robust? most direct?). Individual and collective acts of repression can serve to redirect or diffract that energy-flow, no? Otherwise, our basest of instincts would have preserved a despotic and total reign.

Once this energy has gained momentum, in some certain direction, identifiable as some ideology, must it culminate in that direction, or can a more direct channel "appear" to it from left field? That is, can the force / vitality behind a certain ideological movement, having gained momentum in that ideological direction, be abruptly detoured down a a different ideological channel, before its crest? After the crest/accummulatio, it dips back down to a kind of regenerative rest (to lean on the wave/cycle model perhaps too much).

 

[constant escape]

"The low-hanging fruit conclusion might not be partisan."

By this I mean, the argument might have purchase/merit across the ideological landscape.

An extreme and superficial example: If a fascist cannot be dissuaded on ethical grounds, might they be dissuaded on the grounds that they are currently cherrypicking, which is hardly a manifestation of greatness?

I think this argument could work, radically, perhaps just esoterically. That is, if there were a central dogmatic ideologue of fascism, and I were to toss that argument at him, it might have value. How to express it in mainstream terms (injecting the mainstream, proliferating through the system), in popular terms, is another question yet.

 

[constant escape]

But that "social cybersecurity" that @version pointed out (Kathleen Carley) is a promisingly robust mapping out of such channels of ideological proliferation. Movements/waves can be effectively jumpstarted by flooding the realm with bots, and I gather the law of the world, the actual letters, haven't quite grokked these mechanics enough to pasteurize such a frontier. Then again, I don't know jack about law.

 

[constant escape]

This could be the first champion-project of the kind of ismonautics I was harping on (FKA psychotopography): The agent familiarizes themselves with the vital substratum of the ideology in question (thus, ideologically enter enemy territory); specifically, the agent studies the vital pathways of expression, the particular surface-bound channels through which the vital magma courses out of the core, across the cortex, and out into the surface.

How are these channels engineered? Maybe I'm underestimating our ideologues, but I'm inclined to say this stuff is beyond the faculties of even the Steve Bannons of the world (edit: not to vaunt him above others - a somewhat arbitrary example). It seems these channels engineer themselves, as it were. The vital core-substance is the real agent, and the thick cortex through which it blazes a trail is the wilderness of human expression, the raw, unrealized potential of its own expression.

By tapping into such cosmic energy, one can begin to feel it forcing its way through the many repressing layers of our language, conscious and unconscious. Some layers grant it clearance, others effectively redirect it, others it can sneak through the pores of, and others yet it must violently rupture.

 

[constant escape]

Interesting, how "seeking ground" and irrupting outwardly through the surface are, as images, diametrically opposed - and yet they both accurately, essentially, describe the same abstract force.

 

[luka]

Well that capture and directing of force is what the whole game is about

 

[constant escape]

But has it been effectively systematized? Doesn't need to be absolutely systematized - just enough to be effective for our ends.

 

[luka]

What is it with you and systems!