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> It's still just skirmishes between very small physical groups that will probably move into terrorism and assasinations over the summer, and with tacit or dire

> It's still just skirmishes between very small physical groups that will probably move into terrorism and assasinations over the summer, and with tacit or direct approval and funding from within institutions to keep it going. Over this summer (2021)? Or did you mean "summer" as in "there's a decade or three of spring where things heat up and it culminates in a violent, hot summer"? > The fashionably Girardian view would ask, who will be the scapegoat that lets all these groups save face and gives them an out for peace, and how grisly will its end have to be? I'm pretty sure it's going to be us thoughtful types, and maybe there will be a pogrom against rationalists, because if there is one thing everyone can agree on, people who write like this can be very annoying. The left and the right would be uniting to enact pogroms against "rationalists"?

motohagiography 6y ago
Re: reaitonalists, Laughably, yes, because the idea of a scapegoat is ancient, and it needs to be someone essentially neutral to the conflict. Literally? Perhaps not them, but they are an example of who in the current culture war could stand in for one, e.g. moderate, meta, insensitive, and aloof thinkers are people the extremes could agree on. On the terrorism and assasinations, yes this summer is a reasonable bet. We saw trial runs of it last year in the U.S. and because the parties in the conflict are really small groups, they will use tactics that create that sort of cost effective spectacle. Once one is into real directed political violence, there's nothing earnest or heated about it, it's a cynical tactic mixed with manipulation and deception and the targets of it are reduced to symbols. The perpetrators do not deserve our shock, concern, or even surprise. It's an inferior tactic to hold a losing cause together.

motohagiography 6y ago

Re: reaitonalists, Laughably, yes, because the idea of a scapegoat is ancient, and it needs to be someone essentially neutral to the conflict. Literally? Perhaps not them, but they are an example of who in the current culture war could stand in for one, e.g. moderate, meta, insensitive, and aloof thinkers are people the extremes could agree on. On the terrorism and assasinations, yes this summer is a reasonable bet. We saw trial runs of it last year in the U.S. and because the parties in the conflict are really small groups, they will use tactics that create that sort of cost effective spectacle. Once one is into real directed political violence, there's nothing earnest or heated about it, it's a cynical tactic mixed with manipulation and deception and the targets of it are reduced to symbols. The perpetrators do not deserve our shock, concern, or even surprise. It's an inferior tactic to hold a losing cause together.