US Authoritarianism

816 readers

481 users here now

Hello, I am researching American crimes against humanity. . This space so far has been most strongly for memes, and that's fine.

There's other groups and you are welcome to add to them. USAuthoritarianism Linktree

See Also, my website. USAuthoritarianism.com be advised at time of writing it is basically just a donate link

Cool People: [email protected]

founded 8 months ago

MODERATORS

ChonkyOwlbear

alphanerd4

893

Conservatism is Brain Damage (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by alphanerd4 to c/usauthoritarianism

170 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] nifty 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Ummm many fascists are disguised as intellectuals whose sophistry is only revealed by challenging their assumptions. There were a number of such people who came to rise in Nazi Germany and afterwards, and there are many who are their contemporaries

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 6 points 5 months ago

Fascism is a dictator who thinks they're intellectually creative. Like any nutter or cultist who thinks they've found "the way" to do something that has been obfuscated by [insert things they claimed to be against as they climbed to power], but they're the ones that have the real answer! They're so creative that they do the same thing any authoritarian does: Eliminate critics, make bogeymen up, consolidate money and power, and always fear being overthrown.

[–] exanime 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ummm many fascists are disguised as intellectuals

exactly... and if I put on a ninja costume, I do not in fact become an ninja.

[–] nifty 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Sorry but doesn’t make sense! There are people like Heidegger and Sam Harris who have partly useful contributions to intellectual and academic discourse, but their overarching worldview is authoritarian or fascism aligned. My point is: people multiclass all the time, and you cannot and should not underestimate your ideological opponents

[–] exanime 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I didn't mean to say Facists are dumb... I mean some are, case in point Trump... but very definitely not all of them

However, being smart does not make any one an "intellectual" nor the source of any sound ideology

[–] nifty 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

An intellectual is anyone who can utilize logic, reasoning, and critical analysis to probe ideas or help understand them. Moreover, a member of the intelligentsia is anyone who the ruling class in a society decides is worthy of membership. It’s not so simple as “that dude is only wearing a ninja costume” when someone can just say “yeah he’s a ninja, fuck you”.

[–] exanime -2 points 5 months ago

Hmmm to me that is just anyone with common sense...

I was leaning more into a definition like this one (from wikipedia)

An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for its normative problems.[2][3] Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as a mediator, the intellectual participates in politics, either to defend a concrete proposition or to denounce an injustice, usually by either rejecting, producing or extending an ideology, and by defending a system of values.[4]

I mean, I use logic and reasoning and critical analysis to probe ideas.. but I am certainly no intellectual... the ideas I probe are more in the tune of "how sweet can I make bacon candy before my mother will come back from the grave and smack me for having dessert for breakfast?"

The ninja comment was in reply to the "many fascist disguise as intellectuals" which I took to be there to argue that in fact fascists can be intellectuals which I reject... I mean Trump pretends to be a religious person and he could not be further from that as well. However, I did not mean to turn this into a heavy argument as this is definitely not my area of expertise... I would however claim that, in my limited knowledge, most fascists came to power on populist grounds and populism is almost the opposite of intellectualism

[–] Crashumbc 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's easy to say Trump is dumb, and in a lot of ways he is.

But make no mistake, he knows his audience (poor desperate conservatives) well and is highly skilled at manipulating them.

[–] exanime 1 points 5 months ago

I don't buy much of it... I get your point but if Trump were actually "highly skilled" we would all be doomed. He has put his foot in his mouth so many times I am certain he has athlete's foot in the throat by now.

The issue that his popularity is persistent has 2 main root causes:

A lot of his followers are really angry (justified or not) and they feel they finally can let it out
A lot of his followers are deeply deeply ignorant... functional illiterate people who feel identified in Trump (case in point) and who cannot understand an iota of nuance in most topics because they simply know so little about most stuff

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, but what is it about Sam Harris that makes you say his overarching worldviews are fascist?

[–] pyre 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

defending torture is a good start

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

I was legitmately unaware of this, not trying to stir shit:

For anyone else: https://www.samharris.org/blog/in-defense-of-torture