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>Sure, we can speak about political correctness from West in campuses, but that has no future by definition. Why ? political correctness in progressive-dominat

>Sure, we can speak about political correctness from West in campuses, but that has no future by definition. Why ? political correctness in progressive-dominated spcaces like western uni campuses goes back to the 70s/80s. I was browsing Ted Kaczynski's (better known as the UnaBomber) Industrial Society and Its Future[1], and he spoke about political correctness as an established thing. A 40-year phenomenon seems like something that won't end anytime soon. >Shaping education by foreigners that not accept democratic principles is far more dangerous. I wouldn't be too quick to judge. Not all of china is a single brain, maybe the people funding european universities have meaningful ideological differences from the ruling class. And the blanket usage of "democratic principles" irritates me hugely, because most of modern wesern democracies is a pathetic and transparent sham that is trampled at the earliest encounter with any real established power. [1] http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Anarchism/Unabom/manifesto.html http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/howard/Anarchism/Unabom/manifesto...

boppo1 4y ago
>most of modern wesern democracies is a pathetic and transparent sham that is trampled at the earliest encounter with any real established power I agree with this on a knee-jerk, but it still seems to me 'the west' is different from China, Russia, etc. Why do I feel that, what's the source?
- Banana699 4y ago
  Very concisely: The Media. Every election in a western nation is a huge circus, every referendum a secular holy day. Every elected official speaks of "the people", that mythical monolith who has a True Will that votes supposedly represent. It's a massive dose of ego-stroking deference, it can be hard to see all this and not think you're in some kind of control, after all, you're a voter, and those people speak very reverently of voters, so you must be in charge, right ? In truth, not only votes are a placebo that doesn't measure anything but the crudest of desires, and not only those worthless votes are further made worthless and pointless by the fact that vast hordes of uncoordinated humans are exceptionally easy to manipulate and control to give their votes to anything, much more than individuals or small groups. The reality is that votes and elections just don't matter. Bush didn't need votes to invade Iraq, he just went ahead and did it. The vast vast majority of anything done by an elected official is due to his or her very own desire (modulo reality, of which you as a voter are not part of untill the next election). Democracy is just tyranny except there are multiple competing tyrants (not a novel feature) and you get an extremly small chance to depose the tyrant every n years. "But Term Limits" oh you think 4 or 6 years in office aren't enough to form connections and make favors that can last you 20 outside the office ? "But Free Press" oh okay (1) lol, look at who owns the press (2) what good is a voice that can't affect things, you scream and rage and cry and then what ? someone comes along and convinces you they can solve this problem, For Real This Time^TM, and you vote them into office (if you manage a majority) and after an intial 100 days of theatrics, nothing.
  - t0bia_s 4y ago
    You name only negative side of democratic system. Which is good, because you can. That is one of visible principles of democracy. You wouldn't be able to speak publicly like that in China. But... Do not forget about positive aspects of personal freedoms, individual rights, etc. Btw, what is a perfect system for you?
    - Banana699 4y ago
      >That is one of visible principles of democracy. You wouldn't be able to speak publicly like that in China. This is the "Helpless Voice" aspect, 'democracy' allowed you to scream at the top of your lungs about how it sucks, giving you the illusion that you're more free than you really are. Imagine if Putin made it legal to insult him on the streets, would that make it any less of a totalitarianism ? >Btw, what is a perfect system for you? I'm not sure there is a word for it, anarcho-primitivism is the closest thing, although I don't necessarily agree with them that technology is fundamentally centralized or coercive. Basically, I think that all the ills of society is due to the fundamental idea, the preversion really, of living with people you don't know. That is, to fix society, you have to destroy society, it's a fundamentally unfixable idea. You can't make people who don't feel kinship to each other play by any set of rules. Here's me arguing this from an older comment of mine: ------------------------- >>>I'm a techno-primitivist, I believe political units should be extremely small, extremely numerous, with an emphasis on blood ties as the ultimate guarantee of group cohesion and loyalty. I have a burning hatred for and deep distrust of any political unit with more than 1000 persons. There is no way to make a social organization of >1000 persons consistently fair, the rules are always arbitrary and ad hoc, a few assholes always play the meta-game and find ways around them, and somebody is always oppressed and bullied and consistently given the shorter end without a way to be heard. Family is different, affinity for genetic similarity is deeply hardwired into your lowest level circuits, very few assholes can find their way around the rules evolution built. Every single social organization is a prisoner's dilemma come alive, why cooperate with that stranger you're never going to see again? The answers are always arbitrary and subject to abuse and evasion : Because God, Because Emperor, Because CEO, Because General. Family is the only social unit where the rules stem from your very being : Because Evolution, the very factory that built you, that encoded your love and respect for your own flesh and blood as deep inside as it encoded your liver and kidneys. In another, and better, universe, we never built nations or states or parliaments or public school systems, every family is an autonomous unit under the leadership of its bread winner, and federations of families handle cross-cutting concerns in a way that leaves as much power to the families as possible. ------------------------- Here's another comment of mine from a different forum, arguing the same point in a slightly more colorful (and angry) tones : ------------------------- >>>Imagine You live in a cramped and inferior society among countless nameless millions like farm chattel. You are controlled by monstrous alien entities called States, composed of people like animal bodies are composed of cells, caring about the welfare of people exactly as much as animals care about the welfare of their cells : not at all, unless relevant to their survival. You were not built for this perversity, for hundreds of thousands of years your ancestors lived among people whose very flesh and blood was molded out of the same language as them. Nobody needed to craft rules on how to live with each other; or rather, nobody needed to craft rigid and easily exploitable set-in-stone (or paper or computer memory) rules. You started with the willingness to live with each other, and a natural affection only life born out of itself can hold, and the rules trickled down and evolved as needed. You look upon ants and bees, they are marvellous in their numerousy and organization, but you're not like them, your place is to live among a hundred or a thousand of your kin, governing no one but your kin, and being governed by no one but them. The society you live in is a poor imitation of ants and bees. Everytime you complain someone points to some numbers and explains how they have gone up, how it's good that they go up, how your complaints are misguided and irrational because the only thing that matter is numbers going up, and the societies you're nostalgic for are societies where those numbers have not gone up, and thus can't be worth living in. Can you imagine that ? Some of us don't have to, because we're living it. If you're not, count yourself lucky that you adapted to the life of ants and bees, but don't dismiss or make fun of those who long for the long lost life of humans. -------------------------
t0bia_s 4y ago
>Why ? Because ideology is wrong. >..because most of modern wesern democracies is a pathetic and transparent sham... I wouldn't argue with that, but advantage of free society is that you, as individual, can do something about it. In totalitarian state your attempts to change something that is against state ideology would be suppressed. If we, in democratic states, let others people do nasty things, than it is only because we let them to do it. Is it laziness? Is it lack of responsibility? Or maybe that image that media told us every day... "Don't stick your nose here and there, you wouldn't be able to change anything anyway. Stay scared."
- Banana699 4y ago
  >Because ideology is wrong. I have no objections to political correctness being wrong, I was contradicting the claim that it's something that's going away. >If we, in democratic states, let others people do nasty things, than it is only because we let them to do it Or because they have vastly more wealth, status and connections than you, and can crush you like a bug (totally legally) if you ever went anywhere near them. That's why you can't do anything, not because you choose not to. Democracy is theatre, it doesn't change the fundamental power structure since Ancient Egypt and Babylon. There is an upper caste, and you're not one of them.
  - t0bia_s 4y ago
    Honestly, I don't want to be one of elites. I believe in different values than being rich or powerful. If that is your goal in life, then sure, democracy could look like theater.

boppo1 4y ago

>most of modern wesern democracies is a pathetic and transparent sham that is trampled at the earliest encounter with any real established power I agree with this on a knee-jerk, but it still seems to me 'the west' is different from China, Russia, etc. Why do I feel that, what's the source?

Banana699 4y ago
Very concisely: The Media. Every election in a western nation is a huge circus, every referendum a secular holy day. Every elected official speaks of "the people", that mythical monolith who has a True Will that votes supposedly represent. It's a massive dose of ego-stroking deference, it can be hard to see all this and not think you're in some kind of control, after all, you're a voter, and those people speak very reverently of voters, so you must be in charge, right ? In truth, not only votes are a placebo that doesn't measure anything but the crudest of desires, and not only those worthless votes are further made worthless and pointless by the fact that vast hordes of uncoordinated humans are exceptionally easy to manipulate and control to give their votes to anything, much more than individuals or small groups. The reality is that votes and elections just don't matter. Bush didn't need votes to invade Iraq, he just went ahead and did it. The vast vast majority of anything done by an elected official is due to his or her very own desire (modulo reality, of which you as a voter are not part of untill the next election). Democracy is just tyranny except there are multiple competing tyrants (not a novel feature) and you get an extremly small chance to depose the tyrant every n years. "But Term Limits" oh you think 4 or 6 years in office aren't enough to form connections and make favors that can last you 20 outside the office ? "But Free Press" oh okay (1) lol, look at who owns the press (2) what good is a voice that can't affect things, you scream and rage and cry and then what ? someone comes along and convinces you they can solve this problem, For Real This Time^TM, and you vote them into office (if you manage a majority) and after an intial 100 days of theatrics, nothing.
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  You name only negative side of democratic system. Which is good, because you can. That is one of visible principles of democracy. You wouldn't be able to speak publicly like that in China. But... Do not forget about positive aspects of personal freedoms, individual rights, etc. Btw, what is a perfect system for you?
  - Banana699 4y ago
    >That is one of visible principles of democracy. You wouldn't be able to speak publicly like that in China. This is the "Helpless Voice" aspect, 'democracy' allowed you to scream at the top of your lungs about how it sucks, giving you the illusion that you're more free than you really are. Imagine if Putin made it legal to insult him on the streets, would that make it any less of a totalitarianism ? >Btw, what is a perfect system for you? I'm not sure there is a word for it, anarcho-primitivism is the closest thing, although I don't necessarily agree with them that technology is fundamentally centralized or coercive. Basically, I think that all the ills of society is due to the fundamental idea, the preversion really, of living with people you don't know. That is, to fix society, you have to destroy society, it's a fundamentally unfixable idea. You can't make people who don't feel kinship to each other play by any set of rules. Here's me arguing this from an older comment of mine: ------------------------- >>>I'm a techno-primitivist, I believe political units should be extremely small, extremely numerous, with an emphasis on blood ties as the ultimate guarantee of group cohesion and loyalty. I have a burning hatred for and deep distrust of any political unit with more than 1000 persons. There is no way to make a social organization of >1000 persons consistently fair, the rules are always arbitrary and ad hoc, a few assholes always play the meta-game and find ways around them, and somebody is always oppressed and bullied and consistently given the shorter end without a way to be heard. Family is different, affinity for genetic similarity is deeply hardwired into your lowest level circuits, very few assholes can find their way around the rules evolution built. Every single social organization is a prisoner's dilemma come alive, why cooperate with that stranger you're never going to see again? The answers are always arbitrary and subject to abuse and evasion : Because God, Because Emperor, Because CEO, Because General. Family is the only social unit where the rules stem from your very being : Because Evolution, the very factory that built you, that encoded your love and respect for your own flesh and blood as deep inside as it encoded your liver and kidneys. In another, and better, universe, we never built nations or states or parliaments or public school systems, every family is an autonomous unit under the leadership of its bread winner, and federations of families handle cross-cutting concerns in a way that leaves as much power to the families as possible. ------------------------- Here's another comment of mine from a different forum, arguing the same point in a slightly more colorful (and angry) tones : ------------------------- >>>Imagine You live in a cramped and inferior society among countless nameless millions like farm chattel. You are controlled by monstrous alien entities called States, composed of people like animal bodies are composed of cells, caring about the welfare of people exactly as much as animals care about the welfare of their cells : not at all, unless relevant to their survival. You were not built for this perversity, for hundreds of thousands of years your ancestors lived among people whose very flesh and blood was molded out of the same language as them. Nobody needed to craft rules on how to live with each other; or rather, nobody needed to craft rigid and easily exploitable set-in-stone (or paper or computer memory) rules. You started with the willingness to live with each other, and a natural affection only life born out of itself can hold, and the rules trickled down and evolved as needed. You look upon ants and bees, they are marvellous in their numerousy and organization, but you're not like them, your place is to live among a hundred or a thousand of your kin, governing no one but your kin, and being governed by no one but them. The society you live in is a poor imitation of ants and bees. Everytime you complain someone points to some numbers and explains how they have gone up, how it's good that they go up, how your complaints are misguided and irrational because the only thing that matter is numbers going up, and the societies you're nostalgic for are societies where those numbers have not gone up, and thus can't be worth living in. Can you imagine that ? Some of us don't have to, because we're living it. If you're not, count yourself lucky that you adapted to the life of ants and bees, but don't dismiss or make fun of those who long for the long lost life of humans. -------------------------

t0bia_s 4y ago

>Why ? Because ideology is wrong. >..because most of modern wesern democracies is a pathetic and transparent sham... I wouldn't argue with that, but advantage of free society is that you, as individual, can do something about it. In totalitarian state your attempts to change something that is against state ideology would be suppressed. If we, in democratic states, let others people do nasty things, than it is only because we let them to do it. Is it laziness? Is it lack of responsibility? Or maybe that image that media told us every day... "Don't stick your nose here and there, you wouldn't be able to change anything anyway. Stay scared."

Banana699 4y ago
>Because ideology is wrong. I have no objections to political correctness being wrong, I was contradicting the claim that it's something that's going away. >If we, in democratic states, let others people do nasty things, than it is only because we let them to do it Or because they have vastly more wealth, status and connections than you, and can crush you like a bug (totally legally) if you ever went anywhere near them. That's why you can't do anything, not because you choose not to. Democracy is theatre, it doesn't change the fundamental power structure since Ancient Egypt and Babylon. There is an upper caste, and you're not one of them.
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  Honestly, I don't want to be one of elites. I believe in different values than being rich or powerful. If that is your goal in life, then sure, democracy could look like theater.