Is Conservatism just NeoTraditionalism these days?

[FlashDangerpants]

I wasn't talking about evolution of the human species, I was discussing the evolution of customs, traditions and so on. They start as one thing and evolve very gradually into other things.

The core of tradition is its morality. That doesn't change.

Slavery? I'm told that's considered very bad now, didn't used to be.

So you are into the customs and practices of the Far East huh? How cosmopolitan. Did your table manners change, do you slurp bowls of noodles now?

Well, I actually did indeed have a beef noodle soup this morning.

In what other ways did you evolve a new outlook on traditioal values you left behind?

I like the mentality of the women here a lot. Of course, I also like their incredible looks.

Female submission is important to you?

So we can safely say that you are a radical with no interest in preserving any modern customs whatsoever and a desire to return to ....

Unlike in the West, there is no feminist State here trying to stick its nose into my private bedroom affairs. There is no risk of divorce rape or similar shitty laws. So, I did return to a past where the government stayed out of people's private lives.

What problem do you have with western rape law?

Look, there was only one way to stamp out the arrogance of the German Reich, that is, the hard way.

Similarly, there is only one solution for the problem of the arrogance of the West.

The war in Ukraine gave me hope that Vladimir Putin would soon drive his tanks all the way to the North Sea.

In the meantime, Putin has had two years to do that, but unfortunately, he keeps dragging his feet.

Seriously, NATO and all its feminist States need to be eradicated. Putin needs to finish where the Taliban left off.

Ok. So are we agreed that this is far from the traditions of political Conservatism as those would be envisaged by for instance Edmund Burke? I don't even know what your deal is properly to be called.

[godelian]

Slavery? I'm told that's considered very bad now, didn't used to be.

It depends on the specifics. For example, there were no orphanages in the Roman empire. If a mother did not want the baby, then she would sell it to a family. That is still the way in which it works here.

By the way, the reason why the British abolished the (Atlantic) slave trade has nothing to do with morality. After the successful slave rebellion in Saintes Domingues, now called Haiti -- even Napoleon could not reverse the outcome -- they understood that it was the meek who would inherit the earth.

On the short run, it may look fine and dandy to have a small elite of plantation owners and a large slave population, but anybody with half a brain will see the inevitable coming already.

Female submission is important to you?

That's not really how it works.

It is easy for a pretty woman to attract a man but not particularly easy to keep him. The woman decides if we will proceed to sex, but it is the man who decides if there will be a relationship.

As men we do not hand out relationships as if they were candy.

The woman has to earn the right to some kind of status and title, even just "girlfriend". We do not elevate everybody, because not everybody deserves it.

The only things that someone "deserves", are the things that they have made a real effort for. So, the eternal question remains the same one: What exactly are you bringing to the table?

[FlashDangerpants]

Slavery? I'm told that's considered very bad now, didn't used to be.

It depends on the specifics. For example, there were no orphanages in the Roman empire. If a mother did not want the baby, then she would sell it to a family. That is still the way in which it works here.

By the way, the reason why the British abolished the (Atlantic) slave trade has nothing to do with morality. After the successful slave rebellion in Saintes Domingues, now called Haiti -- even Napoleon could not reverse the outcome -- they understood that it was the meek who would inherit the earth.

On the short run, it may look fine and dandy to have a small elite of plantation owners and a large slave population, but anybody with half a brain will see the inevitable coming already.

It seems then that we both can see that custom and tradition are moveable then, irrespective of whether morality is changeable.

The initial British ban on slave trading may have been moticated by any number of prudential considerations, and IIRC when Britain tried to use it as moral capital at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 (eat it Promethean!) everyone scorned them for outlawing only the easy bit and then trying to claim a massive moral win off the back of little effort.

But it became a powerful motivational cause for the next generation of Africa conquering white supremacists, the source of a new tradition in which white men carried a civilising burden with them as they wandered around Africa finding slave markets and killing everyone involved. You'll see this play out in the Victorian era in Sudan, Zanzibar, Socotra and Oman. Eventually of course the tradition of the White Man's Burden became problematic and was replaced by newer ideas.

That's the sort of thing I was referring to by evolution of customs in the OP.

Female submission is important to you?

That's not really how it works.

It is easy for a pretty woman to attract a man but not particularly easy to keep him. The woman decides if we will proceed to sex, but it is the man who decides if there will be a relationship.

As men we do not hand out relationships as if they were candy.

The woman has to earn the right to some kind of status and title, even just "girlfriend". We do not elevate everybody, because not everybody deserves it.

The only things that someone "deserves", are the things that they have made a real effort for. So, the eternal question remains the same one: What exactly are you bringing to the table?

And when you elevate one of these ladies to wife, does she need to adopt certain traditional, some might say subservient, roles to keep her man happy?

[Sculptor]

Who at this site are we supposed to consider a Conservative these days? I don't really see any.

The central thesis of Conservatism - as I always understood it anyway - has been that our traditions and customs are not to be discarded without a care as though they never brought any value. Rather customs and traditions represent the distilled wisdom of the ages and ought to be treated with a modicum of respect and subjected only to well thought out reasonably paced reform. I believe i culled that from some unholy combo of Edmund Burke and Maggie Thatcher, but it seems to me roughly accurate of traditional Conservatism - Conservatism being the sort of thing that probably should be retained in its traditional variety.

What Conservatism doesn't traditionally boast of is some plan or engineering that put it together, the whole value comes from a process of very slow evolution over long periods of time during which the collection of beneficial traditions happened by accident as people, now long dead, discovered without the need for any big plan to do so (big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives). It is supposed to age like a fine wine.

The Conservatives on this site don't match that description at all. They mostly want to roll back the clock a really long way, like they don't seem to have noticed how long ago the 1950s actually were. I hate to break the news to everyone, but there's old people here who hadn't even been born then. That's a really long timeframe to be trying to revert to.

But another misgiving I have is that our Conservatives all seem to have these singular central notions that justify everything. The placing of value upon leisurely progress that is the point of Trad Conservatism is discarded by a Neo-Traditional demand to ennoble some specific set of old traditions (possibly misrememberred) into what looks to be intended as a coherent set of correct approved traditions.

So is that it? Did Conservatism get eaten by its own young in the end?

Depends.
Is one subjective and culturally relative abstraction just the same as another subjective and culturally relative abstraction??
When you define them, then we are able judge.
But since they are both rather vauge and diffuse terms it would be difficult to say. Generally different people might construct these phrases for different reasons and for different purposes.

Is the "war on woke" just another name for racid hatred, intolerance and bigotry?
I would say yes. But then my personal "woke" is not as extreme as some instances, but being "woke" I recognise that such extremity can be a reaction to acid hatred, intolerance and bigotry.

[godelian]

And when you elevate one of these ladies to wife, does she need to adopt certain traditional, some might say subservient, roles to keep her man happy?

She just has to do what she ordinarily does, and if I notice unacceptable habits, I will simply cancel the approach or disband the arrangement.

People do not change.

That is why we replace the person instead.

I am not the father and the mother who needs to teach her by example how to behave. This is the responsibility of the family. She knows from the example of her mother how her mother behaves with her father. She will naturally imitate what she knows.

If there is something wrong with her upbringing, it is not my job to fix that.

Furthermore, it does not take particularly long to pick up on the existence of that kind of problems. I usually notice within minutes that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark.

One major red flag, for example, is when she has learned from her divorced mother to shit talk her father. In that case, run to helicopter already, because she is preprogrammed from the get-go to sooner or later shit talk you as well.

So, one of the first things to do, is to get her to talk about her father.

But then again, there is substantially less damage in that realm here in SE Asia. The bubonic plague has certainly not spread as widely as in the West.

[FlashDangerpants]

Is one subjective and culturally relative abstraction just the same as another subjective and culturally relative abstraction??
When you define them, then we are able judge.

Fair enough I guess.

Neo-Traditionalism isn't in itself a left or right sort of thing, it's the "revival" of a coherent set of traditional folk memories/customs/institutions and often costumes with an intent to create a whole of some sort. It was used a lot in the 19th Centrury to bring into being modern (then) nations where some ethnicity was represented to replace old kingdoms spread over multi-ethnic regions.

Hobsbawm details a lot of that in his books about the long 19th century, but an example that springs to mind is that of the entire history of a supposed animosity between the Slovak and Czech people ... even though both of those ethnicities were under construction by the guy who invented that vendetta between them.

Conservatism is at heart a certain belief that however we did things yesterday is a pretty good starting point if we want to look at how we ought to do them tomorrow. It's largely the valuing of continuity, predictability and stability and the comforts of the known. Conservatives of the old order tend to revere things like the sound of cricket played on a village green and therefore like to ensure that yougsters play cricket and that villages with greens remain. As far as design of this whole thing goes, they are sometimes liable to attribute such goodness to the will of a deity, or to certain characteristics of their nation (that good old English sense of fair play for instance) but they aren't usually set on redesigning it except occasionally when an iconoclast such as Maggie Thatcher comes along. But once they are done with the iconoclast, they typically revert I believe.

My question is whether that brand of conservatism can withstand the new era of "dissident right" iconoclasts who are willing to burn down a lot of stuff that Thatcher and Reagan and so on would have thought beyond the pale. They seem to be constructing a limited set of traditions to revere and discarding so much more.

[Sculptor]

Is one subjective and culturally relative abstraction just the same as another subjective and culturally relative abstraction??
When you define them, then we are able judge.

Fair enough I guess.

Neo-Traditionalism isn't in itself a left or right sort of thing, it's the "revival" of a coherent set of traditional folk memories/customs/institutions and often costumes with an intent to create a whole of some sort. It was used a lot in the 19th Centrury to bring into being modern (then) nations where some ethnicity was represented to replace old kingdoms spread over multi-ethnic regions.

I doubt there are many people who explicitely identify as Neotraditionalist, though. I would think it would be word used to vilify others. FOr example I would traduce Israel's position on Zionism as such and pour ridicule upon it relfecting that were this to be implemented evenly Austrail would have to be returned to the Aboriginees and that the white were ripe for slaughter and starvation. Many other such examples exist the world over.

Hobsbawm details a lot of that in his books about the long 19th century, but an example that springs to mind is that of the entire history of a supposed animosity between the Slovak and Czech people ... even though both of those ethnicities were under construction by the guy who invented that vendetta between them.

Many vendettas of the kind exist for much the same reason, and people are only too eager to adpot the ball and chain of the phantom of
"eithnic indentity". The absuridity is a serious impediment to human progress. Such ethnic rivalries, and claims to land based on precedent relate to a deeper failing; group think and tribalism. "Neotraditionalism" i this respect is little more than a rationalisation of theis primitive erge to "other" a rival group; colour, sexual orientation, nationality, size of nose - any of these things can be used to justify and enhance evil purpose.

Conservatism is at heart a certain belief that however we did things yesterday is a pretty good starting point if we want to look at how we ought to do them tomorrow. It's largely the valuing of continuity, predictability and stability and the comforts of the known. Conservatives of the old order tend to revere things like the sound of cricket played on a village green and therefore like to ensure that yougsters play cricket and that villages with greens remain. As far as design of this whole thing goes, they are sometimes liable to attribute such goodness to the will of a deity, or to certain characteristics of their nation (that good old English sense of fair play for instance) but they aren't usually set on redesigning it except occasionally when an iconoclast such as Maggie Thatcher comes along. But once they are done with the iconoclast, they typically revert I believe.

My question is whether that brand of conservatism can withstand the new era of "dissident right" iconoclasts who are willing to burn down a lot of stuff that Thatcher and Reagan and so on would have thought beyond the pale. They seem to be constructing a limited set of traditions to revere and discarding so much more.

I would say that are related but not exactly the same. COnservativism is a generlised resistence to any kind of change - traditions are but one aspect. But this is used to marshal and restrict resourses to the group. These resources can be cultural, and material, such as rights and access to land, as well as the right to display symbolism.

But here is the big problem with this kind of question. It is a confusion about terms, when what is important is the general consequences of actions which we might chose to descibe by those terms. Call is conservatism or traditionalism or neotraditionalism, you can add fascism to that too. IN general terms these are all attempts to enforce self fulfilling inequality, of benefit to the group, and to the detriminent of outsiders.
Reminds me of something I worte in a these about the lost rights of huner gatherer societies who do not have the luxury of traditionalism or conservatism; unless bestowed "graciously" by the dominating culture - (so as to keep them down)

Giddens has set out four characteristics of advanced society 1) unilinear compression, is the phenomenon which reduces society to a stage in an unfolding process, this in turn is applied to categorise the formation of individual personalities, know as 2) homological compression in which the psychological makeup conforms to criteria which mirror social development. Normitive illusion (3), is the identification of superior power (economic, military or political) with moral supremacy on an evolutionary scale and is related to the vanity of ethnocentricity. Temporal distortion (4) is a confusion between history and historicity which sees history written only in terms of social change. These are simple enough to deconstruct but hard relinquish since they encourage the vanity of Western society. Normitive illusion has led to the genocide of many races caused, not because of their evolutionary status, as we are all equally evolved, but for the simple reason that they had no fire-arms. It is our technical superiority which deceives to imagine our moral rights. If we are to accept the evolvedness of all surviving cultures then unilinear and homological compression is simply an illusion based on categorical thinking which, by reduction, ignores the richness of human culture and predetermines social categories complete with modes and forces of production.

[FlashDangerpants]

I doubt there are many people who explicitely identify as Neotraditionalist, though.

I've never heard of anybody who would identify as such. But I see people on this site who identify as conservatives or something of that ilk who just don't seem to be conservatives at all.

I don't really know if Godelian actually identifies as a conservative per se, but he did write "Nowadays, a true conservative is a digital nomad, a nomad capitalist, as well as a passport bro" just up the page a bit and he is a digital nomad and apparently a passport bro to boot, so I'll claim it. But that doesn't sound very much like conservatism, and his desire for Russia to invade everyone isn't terribly Reaganesque either.

Now consider Wizzy, who also considers himself a conservative. How will he react when he finds out that this Godelian guy is overseas doing the dirty do with women of a different race? That's fornication for non baby-making purposes which disgusts our born again virgin friend, and it's miscegenation to boot, and we know how much he hates interracial things. There will be blood in the streets.

Neither of these guys is a conservative. Both of them are throwing together some set of half-remembered, half-invented, pseudo-ancient values. Each of them is (probably, I haven't read a lot of Godelian writings so I am assuming in that instance) trying to create some coherent set out of such values, with at least some awareness that they are discarding a number of traditional conservative positions as they go.

By that description, I consider them both to be neo-trad rather than conservative.

[godelian]

I don't really know if Godelian actually identifies as a conservative per se, but he did write "Nowadays, a true conservative is a digital nomad, a nomad capitalist, as well as a passport bro" just up the page a bit and he is a digital nomad and apparently a passport bro to boot, so I'll claim it. But that doesn't sound very much like conservatism, and his desire for Russia to invade everyone isn't terribly Reaganesque either.

Just like myself, Tucker Carlson also likes Vladimir Putin a lot. It is obvious that Putin is a useful instrument. Putin even complained that Carlson was way too soft on him. Carlson should have asked "hard questions" during the interview instead of just admiring him! I would have had the same problem as Tucker. Seriously, what "hard question" does Putin want us to ask him? The point of interviewing him is not to try to make Putin look bad. On the contrary, the point is to show our unwavering loyalty to his fantastically correct ideas!

Now consider Wizzy, who also considers himself a conservative. How will he react when he finds out that this Godelian guy is overseas doing the dirty do with women of a different race? That's fornication for non baby-making purposes which disgusts our born again virgin friend, and it's miscegenation to boot, and we know how much he hates interracial things. There will be blood in the streets.

The Quran, which is just a correction on the Bible by leaving out Paul's bullshit -- Paul the notorious apostate of the Law -- does not mention women of other races as haraam. Therefore, just like to any woman, you simply need to pay mahr prior to intimately enjoying her affections. Who has said that I do not pay mahr to an interracial woman? Of course, an interracial woman also gets mahr from me. In the light of my net worth, it's peanuts anyway. I am not going to stray in violation of God's law for what for me amounts to mere pennies.

Concerning pregnancy, I leave it up to the woman, interracial or not, to figure out if she wants to carry it around for nine months or not. If she wants it, fine. If she doesn't, also fine.

According to the prophetic Sunnah, the messenger of Allah (SAW) declared that he had no problems with the practice of coitus interruptus. Hence, sex for non baby-making purposes is not considered to be haraam. So, you can liberally use sex for enjoyment and/or pair bonding. Furthermore, it is no problem to use other methods of contraception.

By the way, in humanity most acts of sex are not reproductive to begin with.

If a man wanted sex only once a year, then he would only show up once a year. In that case, most women and children on the planet would go starving. You see, every time the man shows up, he also brings some goodies, which encourages the woman to give him some good-quality action, which in turn will make him come back again for more. Hence, the primary purpose of sex is to keep the exchange going, of sexual-tension relief for financial-tension relief.

By the way, interracial women respond in exactly the same way. They are not different in that respect.

[Skepdick]

Obviously I did have a case. There's a nostalgic nutcase called Wizzard22 who is trying to revive the 1950s with all the racial segregation and religious bullying that could possibly imply. Wizzy is so nostalgia-mad he even has written that food tasted better in the 90s. Immanuel Can wants to roll back every change since the 50s and reimpose reds-under-the-bed collective paranoia from a bygone time. Jacobi is straight up trying to revive the Third Reich.

You can make any case you want to make when you are fishing for loonies in the places where most loonies hang out. That's just selection bias.

Why not make your case by pointing to factions/political movements with actual political influence and momentum who are actively attempting to; and even might succeed at bringing back the 50s?

If Wizzard22, IC or Jacobi are our most pertinent social problems we can safely call the job done.

[Immanuel Can]

Who at this site are we supposed to consider a Conservative these days? I don't really see any.

The central thesis of Conservatism - as I always understood it anyway - has been that our traditions and customs are not to be discarded without a care as though they never brought any value. Rather customs and traditions represent the distilled wisdom of the ages and ought to be treated with a modicum of respect and subjected only to well thought out reasonably paced reform.

Thanks for this thoughtful summary.

This is quite a fair way to put the case for conservatism, relatively speaking. One caveat, maybe: it's not that "customs and tradition" are valued because they're old, but because time tends to act as a kind of 'filter,' in which weak and foolish ideas tend to get syphoned out more readily than strong and practical ideas. A conservative believes, for example, that Socrates or Shakespeare can tell us things that matter today; so anytime a new program of reform is proposed, conservatives tend to ask, "How does this fit in with the concepts and ideas that have already proved their durability, practicality and general worth?"

So conservatism isn't really a creed as such; it is rather an impulse to check the past for wisdom, rather than to rush blindly into some proposed "future" that may or may not be good. So the using of the capital "C" implies something that the conservative disposition does not actually represent. It's not an ideological package of some sort: in reality, it's a disposition toward the past, just as you've noted...and today's liberal becomes tomorrow's conservative, unless he/she is committed to the kind of radical past-rejection that typifies ideological Leftism.

Now, there may be such a thing as large-C "Conservatism." But if there is any such, it's manifestly an extreme that, in practice, is rarely found. The Left, however, seems to project its own ideological structure onto conservative voices, and to assume that underneath the reluctance to throw away everything from the past is a sinister desire to maintain the "structures of power" of the present. This is generally not the case among conservatives, as you note: they really tend to be fine with a "reasonably-paced reform," as you so aptly put it.

What Conservatism doesn't traditionally boast of is some plan or engineering that put it together,

Right again.

And in this, it differs quite radically from Leftism. Leftism rejects the past wholesale. It views the past as inevitably flawed, oppressive and regressive, and advocates an unstopping process of perpetual "revolutions." It rushes headlong into a perceived "future" that does not ever come, but does so by a kind of trusting of (large-H) "History," meaning a kind of god-substitute. This "History" is blithely assumed, by Leftism, to be heading inevitably in a direction known only to Leftists (such as "the just society," "the end of History," or "the triumph of the proletariat," to use their terms); so all they feel they have to do is trust the process of History, and things will work out as they ought.

Against this assumed trajectory of "History," the status quo is continually seen, by the Left, as the restrictive force. Thus, all a Leftist feels morally obligated to do is to destroy the past and unseat the present (the "oppressive" order), and "History" will be liberated again to do its benevolent work. So conservatism is seen as a dire enemy, a repressive and oppressive order that holds back the wond'rous "History" from achieving its rightful telos or outcome. Thus, it is very hard for any Leftist to have a reasoned conversation with anybody who exhibits any conservatism: for why would you dialogue with an "oppressor" who controls the "status quo" tyranically, and manages it for his/her own ends? And this is especially exacerbated by the strong Leftist conviction that dialogue is really inauthentic anyway; instead, what it sees in the world is a field of competing "voices," each one vying for power through "the will to power," and each incapable of understanding each other's perspective anyway, since Leftism sees us all as tyrannized products of social conditioning through sex, race, culture, etc.

As you rightly put it, "big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives." The conservative impulse is not a "big plan" sort of thing: instead, it aims at gradual change, with preservation (or conservation) of the gains of the past, rather than radical overthrow of the "structures of power" or "systems of oppression" so much talked-about by the Left.

...the whole value comes from a process of very slow evolution over long periods of time during which the collection of beneficial traditions happened by accident as people, now long dead, discovered without the need for any big plan to do so (big plans to do such things being the work of Radicals not Conservatives). It is supposed to age like a fine wine.

Not quite.

Unlike the Left, the conservatives do not have a blithe trust in some "History" to get things right. Things don't "age like fine wine." Rather, conservatives tend to believe that things have to be managed, and managed deliberately, cautiously and progressively, rather than radically and violently overthrown. The tendency among conservatives is also to point to the failures of history, not just the successes, and to point out that radical, violent change (think the French Revolution, for example) rarely turns out well, because people are fallible, foolish and flawed on many occasions. And this is why conservatism also places such emphasis on things like rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language, and so forth...these are assumed by conservatives to offer some bulwark against foolish, radical impulses that are so prevalent in mankind and so evident in history. (You'll also note that these same things -- rights, constitutions, checks-and-balances, logic, rationality, scientific testing, historical knowledge, plain language -- are all under vigorous seige by the Left today, which proclaims them the false tools of the "oppressors," and instructs us to be very ready to dismiss them all).

The Conservatives on this site don't match that description at all. They mostly want to roll back the clock a really long way, like they don't seem to have noticed how long ago the 1950s actually were.

This is probably the first moment when I see something actually not quite right in your summary. There may be some people who long for the '50s, but I think they're the same people who have forgotten history and become naively nostalgic. They're not really manifesting the conservative disposition, because that dispostion emphasizes the proper knowing and sifting of the past. That's exactly what the '50s dreamers do not do. Their "conservatism," if any they have, is of an unthinking and unserious kind.

But here we come to another reason that conservatism is harder to pin down than Leftism: conservatives, not being ideologically driven but rather committed (for different reasons, perhaps) to a general impulse toward the sifting of the past for wisdom and the controlled progressing of the present, do not form a single ideological group. It's not like the Left, which can trace its entire pattern of thinking back to people like Marcuse and Gramsci, or beyond them to Marx or Nietzsche, and to their founding manifestos. Being an impulse rather than an ideology, conservatives do not mass and mob with the same sort of alacrity that one finds in the Left. Even the most radical "Conservatives" only manage to form small groups, because the interests within the broad scope of conservatism are too diverse, and there is no single ideological package to pull them all together.

For example, my conservatism is confessedly "relgious" in nature: I'm a conservative person because I believe in the Biblical account of human nature and the purpose of things. But many conservative persons are totally unreligious, so their motives are not the same. One might say that Randians, Libertarians, free-marketers, antiquarians, cultural traditionalists, scientists, logicians, nationalists, and so on are all "conservative" in their orientation: but one could hardly say any of them is motivated by "religious" considerations. So there's no pinning the motives of conservatives to one set of simple things, really...everybody within that broad category tends to have his/her own reasons, and to be much more slow than the Left ever is to risk combining these disparate motives into one political movement, and thus of failing properly to "conserve" their own particular concern.

So yes, conservatives are harder to locate. No manifesto, only a rather general and foggy ideological basis (you mentioned Burke and Thatcher, but they are very different individuals, obviously, and neither really consolidated a "large-C" Conservatism out of anything), no central authority, no organizing principle, and only a sort of desire to preserve different aspects of the past tie them together at all. The Left is far easier to trace, because it's really only the Left that is committed to a single core ideology, rather than to a mere general impulse.

So far, so good?

[promethean75]

"And in this, it differs quite radically from Leftism. Leftism rejects the past wholesale. It views the past as inevitably flawed, oppressive and regressive, and advocates an unstopping process of perpetual "revolutions.""

Yeah but that's an incriminating way to describe the Left. Real Marxists don't vilify history as if it were some malevolent force... and in fact would describe the capitalist revolution as a progressive event in history.

The villians are the innocent capitalists, innocent becuz they're just playing by the rules of a system they were able to take advantage of and become successful in.

The spirit of the marxist critique is not in the spirit of a moral indictment of the bourgeoisie. Except for the manifesto, everything I've read is moderately toned.

"It rushes headlong into a perceived "future" that does not ever come, but does so by a kind of trusting of (large-H) "History," meaning a kind of god-substitute. This "History" is blithely assumed, by Leftism, to be heading inevitably in a direction known only to Leftists (such as "the just society," "the end of History," or "the triumph of the proletariat," to use their terms); so all they feel they have to do is trust the process of History, and things will work out as they ought."

You're readin the situation wrongly. Marxism isn’t a manifest destiny complex that trusts some hegelian absolute spirit to lead the natural dialectical course of history and just make a revolution happen when it's s'posed to.

That's dialectical fatalism, and your homegirl Rosa 'the red' Lichtenstein shows how, in fact, if Hegel has any influence at all on modern marxist and leftists today, it's prolly to blame for, if anything, postponing revolution... certainly not helping it.

[Immanuel Can]

"And in this, it differs quite radically from Leftism. Leftism rejects the past wholesale. It views the past as inevitably flawed, oppressive and regressive, and advocates an unstopping process of perpetual "revolutions.""

Yeah but that's an incriminating way to describe the Left.

It's actually how they describe what they really want. You find it, for example, in both Kendi and DiAngelo, as well as in many current Neo-Marxist tracts. If it's "incriminating," then it's "incriminating" only by being exposed as to what it actually entails.

Is that "criminal"? Well, if you say so.

Real Marxists don't vilify history as if it were some malevolent force...

That's nothing I ever said. I said the opposite: that they worship and trust their pseudo-god "History" as the force which will automatically produce progress, so long as they continue to revolt and destroy the status quo. That's why Leftism is satisfied to be destructive without being creative; their ideology teaches them to think that History will take care of itself. Their utopia, they say, cannot be described in advance: it has to be generated by the dialectical conflicts yet to come. And they regard that as a credit to their theory.

The villians are the innocent capitalists, innocent becuz they're just playing by the rules of a system they were able to take advantage of and become successful in.

Interesting how you transfer "success" into "villainy." But that's common in the Left: they assume that the mere fact of you having succeeded at all within the existing "system" must prove you are an "oppressor." And their reasoning is that only an "oppressor" could succeed within a system they've already damned as "oppressive."

Except for the manifesto, everything I've read is moderately toned.

It can't be that you've read much, then. The Left is certainly not short of hateful and inflamatory rhetorical gestures.

if Hegel has any influence at all on modern marxist and leftists today, it's prolly to blame for, if anything, postponing revolution... certainly not helping it.

Well, Marx was so badly wrong that there's something to the objection that Hegel didn't give him an advantage at all. But Marx pretty much borrowed the important elements of his thinking (dialectics, in particular) from Hegel, then re-framed them materialistically, rather than spiritually. Marx believed in the great god "History," just as much (though with less apparent self-awareness) as Hegel did. He thought he could "read" how the whole future of human history was destined to unfold, culminating in "the triumph of the proletariat" and "the classless society" -- nowadays reframed by Neo-Marxists as something like "the end of History." How did he know this?

Well, clearly, he didn't. He saw himself as a prophet. He believed he alone could "read" the dynamics of social conflict, as manifest through class-struggle. But then, Marx was a serious nutcase, obviously. He had no such wisdom, and subsequent events have proved his "prophecies" so off-base that not even Neo-Marxists want to stick with his theory without revising such basic considerations as his whole dynamic of change. Nowadays, they insist it's not "class conflict" at all, but rather conflict along lines of race, sex, sexual activity, madness, fatness, disability, culture, and so on -- "intersectional" conflict, they now say.

[promethean75]

"The Left is certainly not short of hateful and inflamatory rhetorical gestures."

That's Marxism/Karenism, and I'm not a Marxist Karenist.

[promethean75]

Capitalism is great if u are adept at using its advantages, as morally questionable as they might be. But it is socio-economic darwinism at its best. Nothing unnatural about it either. That's just silly to say it's unnatural. It also causes innovation and productivity to skyrocket wherever it happens, creating massive wealth. Won't say for who tho coughcapitalistcough.

All marxism is in its most essential and incorrupt form is an effort to point out the fact that if workers just got rid of middle men and collectively owned and managed the means with which they produced, they would profit more from their own labor. That's what it is simplicter. Pushed to the logical extreme we start talking about working class influencing government bodies more directly or even becoming the governing bodies themselves.

It's not about ak-47s, famines and gulags. That's just the shit that happens when guys read marx and get big ideas that don't work out in the end.