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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Turning Us Inside Out |
| 2020-01-21 |
| [Sarah Hoyt] - I think it was fifteen years ago now that Classical Values coined the term "Cold Civil war." At the time I read it, it immediately clicked in my brain as "oh. Precisely. This is what it is." I could see immediately the same patterns as we saw it in Europe in the seventies and eighties, as the Soviets ‐ through puppets ‐ had taken over the schools, publishing, and all instruments of culture, and all those of us who opposed communism had as options was keeping our heads down, shutting up, and seething internally. ...And so, by fifteen years ago, I felt much like I was living in Europe in the seventies. Which is why the term fit. Since then ... since then things have gone more so, but at the same something happened that didn’t happen in the international cold war: They lost control of the information stream. The USSR never lost control of that, arguably even as it collapsed internally and officially stopped existing. Or as we say around here, the snake is dead but the tail twitches. But the tail has lot access to the levers of power, to overstretch the metaphor. It’s twitching madly trying to regain them, but they can’t. Thing is though that one of the things they thoroughly infested is our democracy, from our bureaucracy to our voting mechanisms, to the point that they have power over us. And they’re terrified. They’re so terrified that I’m wondering how deep the sewer is, and how dirty everyone involved in this is. I know in a couple of places they can’t reform. They’ll die first, because the alternative is they’re dead anyway, or worse, they have to part with everything they’ve been and everything they believe. Which means they’re trying to regain control by all means possible and being increasingly aggressive and stupid about their aggression. Which, in retrospect, is another parallel with the USSR before the fall. As a parenthetical comment, the reason they’re collapsing is partly the reason the USSR collapsed. Turns out when what you’re choosing for is compliance and ideological conformity, you don’t choose people who can keep the lights on in civilization. When you value fake science that confirms your prejudices over real science, you end up not being able to run a technological civilization. But it is the snake flopping around and looking for levers and trying for a desperate win after it’s defanged.... There are several reasons I wish actual violence would wait until we had time to do more work on the "back panel" of the culture. We have ‐ despite everything ‐ been turning the culture around. Which is part of the reason they are desperate. ...Maybe we’ll get lucky. It looked impossible the cold war would end without major blood, particularly as the USSR lost the plot and flailed around. But I would lie if I said I’m not nervous about Virginia. Tap dancing on a powder barrel is dangerous, particularly when the powder barrel has connections all over the world ‐ everyone, everywhere is fed up with the left. ...They’re not engaging in provocations because they’re winning. They’re not screaming and trying to cancel you because they’re strong. They’re not letting the masks drop because they’re confident of victory. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #1 I love this lady. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2020-01-21 10:23 |