Opinion Do you ever wonder if the Enlightenment was a mistake?

Should they be subordinated to people like me in some manner?


So you want fascism, theocracy and abolishment of women's rights... Why is this always the end goal of conservatives? Its almost like all that empty waffle about personal responsibility is just just that, empty waffle.

Incels are the fault of women having too much freedom?
 
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Judging by his past post history, probably Adolph.
Hah! Well I can't say I'm familiar with his post history, and I don't generally conflate monarchists and nazis, but it's certainly been my experience that people advocating for authoritarian dictators are less likely to be advocating for competent examples of benevolent dictatorship (or as close as there's been) like Lee Kuan Yew than for some populist reactionary.
 
Leviathan basically.

Funny thing too is that the biblical Messiah is in actuality a just and fair dictator. The term is basically assigned to an absolutist dictator who knows what's best for everyone. It counters the idea that the normal joe would be corrupted so the messiah as an absolute monarch is incapable of being corrupted. He also doesn't need to do anything to maintain his authority because all of his followers have totally succumbed to him.
 
So you want fascism, theocracy and abolishment of women's rights... Why is this always the end goal of conservatives?
Not necessarily just conservatives. Rightism in general relates to support for a legally enforced hierarchy, and few people supporting that imagine themselves to be on the bad side of it.

Thread is stupid, though. Compare the success of enlightenment-inspired regimes to anything that preceded them.
 
Not necessarily just conservatives. Rightism in general relates to support for a legally enforced hierarchy, and few people supporting that imagine themselves to be on the bad side of it.

Thread is stupid, though. Compare the success of enlightenment-inspired regimes to anything that preceded them.
"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other form"
 
I think the fact that there are still monarchists in the world in 2024 arguing for landed nobility, the divine right of kings and a caste system is more of a social failure than people that either can't or won't dispose of their waste in the correct colour coded bin and people that don't crawl up to red lights.
I actually thought the TS might just be fuckjng with us when I read that long ass story about rolling up to red lights and the recycling. Then he started slipping a bunch of red pill shit in and realized that is his actual agenda.
 
Yeah man America has just been a massive failure of an experiment. Really nailed this one bro
I think the TS's weird position is based on taking an extremely short-term and partisan view of history. "The current president isn't in my party so the past 250 years of unimaginable progress has been a failure" kind of thing.
 
@650lb Sumo where do you rank yourself on your Russian caste system?

One of the upper ones, without a doubt.

That's always the case with right wingers when they fantasize about a system different from the current liberal one. Whether it's caste, monarchy, anarcho-capitalist or whatever, they are always at or near the top. Everyone else is unwashed, stupid, and ignorant so they get to be at the bottom, doing manual labor and not taking part in decision making.
 
The biggest problem with Democracy (at least ours in the US) is how completely and utterly intertwined it is with money. Most problems in this country can be traced back to greedy fuck stains valuing money over humanity, both inside and outside government. This is the defining trait of the United States of America at this point. Profit over people.

Unfettered free market Capitalism is a horrible economic system, and that's self-evident at this point. The right's "the free market will solve everything!" talking point from back in the day has become a tired joke. Here's what you get without heavy government regulation:

Monopolies.
An ever-increasing wealth gap leading to class warfare.
Poorer-made products that become increasingly expensive, especially from the standpoint of buying power, since wages will always steadily drop (this is by design).
Fewer jobs, since companies will outsource production to the cheapest area in order to boost profits.
Massive environmental pollution leading to death and disease.
A food industry that is more interested in money than nutrition, leading to an enormously unhealthy population.
Cyclical economic recessions / depressions, and collapses like the housing market (which was directly caused by a lack of regulation).

Most Conservatives don't want to admit these things are true, but I defy any of you on this forum to argue the point.
 
Five Points

I've tried to keep the OP as brief and simple as possible. I don't have time to write a dissertation on each point.

enlightenment-icons.png.webp



(1) I would prefer not to have a dictator/absolute monarch. But what if only a dictator can prevent the situation we have now? Which is so bad we're not even allowed to talk about it openly. People will then say, ah but what about when a bad person inevitably, eventually takes power? That is a weakness of that system. Then you have a serious problem. However, we have very serious problems under the current regime.

(2) Keeping things brief, my comment on (1) covers this.

(3) As unpalatable as Postmodern Man may find this, I'm not sure this is the best way to run your society. It goes against human nature. People have caste. Here's a chart of the Old Russian / East Slavic Caste system from this page (it's in Russian).

tipy_ljudej.png


AI can read pictures but in case it helps here's the text with basic translations. These words are not easy to translate exactly and I haven't made a great effort.

ас - In this context, a kind of god
человек - person
людина - person but with a rustic tinge perhaps (It's also 'person' in Ukrainian.)
жить - life
нежить - evil, animated things without souls, like zombies or vampires
нелюдь - non-person or person of very low quality
бес - demon
кащей - a kind of central, supernatural, evil antagonist like Satan or Loki, but less powerful

An old image I have saved:

image.png


(4) Obviously people aren't equal in ability and I suspect that giving them equal rights, to the extent that we do, scuppers society.

(5) This could easily develop into a huge tangent, with people posting white knuckle rants about Pol Pot and the Killing Fields. I would prefer that not to happen. Still there can't be many people who believe in minimum government intervention into the free market nowadays.


Prompt for Thread


From 11 - 16 my maths teacher was called Mr Pointing. Once, when we were about 12, we were on an irrelevant tangent and Mr Pointing explained that when you are driving and the traffic lights go red in front of you, the most sensible thing to do is to slow right down and time your approach so that you get to the lights as they go green. The more experience you have of that road and lights the better you can time it.

When I started driving I have always done this. I mean I would have figured it out without Mr Pointing anyway. However, I know that not everyone is the same, and that people behind you often get agitated when you do this. This evening I could see the lights maybe 125 yards away turn red. I know this road well. I took the car out of gear until it slowed to a crawl, then crept foward on idle in first. Sure enough, the two cars behind me started flashing their headlights and giving long beeps on their horns, and accelerated harshly past me, only to brake quite hard and stop at the still-red lights. I caught up and stopped, then after a couple of seconds the lights changed.

Also, every time I go to the gym, out of morbid curiosity I look in the bins. They look something like this:

ucl_recycle_bins.jpg


They are colour coded.
There are text descriptions of what goes in each bin.
There are pictures of what goes in each bin.

Without fail things are piled up in the wrong bins. I could give more examples of course. It makes me wonder, are the creatures who do this 'people'? Would a 'person' do that? Is a 'person' incapable of understanding the above cues? Should these 'people' have votes? Should they have the same rights as someone who understands what to do in the above situations? Should they be subordinated to people like me in some manner?


Uncomfortable Questions, Unpalatable Choices

Did society work better when women were subordinate to men? How about people, for instance, who have an IQ of 85 and are the third generation of living their whole lives on benefits, in government-subsidised housing, committing petty crime? That kind of person is the only category of ethnic Briton who is having children above replacement rate by the way.

I realise this thread is quite un PC and might go to the Wasteland or get deleted but I wanted to raise these conundrums. I would like it if everyone could be free and equal and everything but the Enlightenment paradigm doesn't seem to be working out for us. Like, most people wouldn't want LGBT people to be imprisoned, as they used to be (or executed, as they were before that). However most people also don't want mass trans kids, drag queen story hour, transexual admirals and generals in dog masks etc. What if Enlightenment principles don't work, and you had to choose between the two?

What if the only way to stop moral degeneracy was bringing Christianity back?

What if the only way to stop OnlyFans/chad harems/incels was banning divorce, birth control and single mother benefits?

What if the only way to reduce/stop/reverse the gigantic Third World immigration to western countries was some kind of Fascism, with hundreds of thousands of troops on the streets?

What if the only way to stop the economy ending up in NeoFeudalism, where 0.1% own everything and we are all in eternal debt and reduced to a slavelike existence, was mass-imprisonment and expropriation of the super rich?
A lot to unpack in this post.

It's hard to separate the Enlightenment with other aspects of our modern world, like the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, mass literacy, and our legal system. Without the Enligthenment, the West would have looked rather different and unrecognizable. Do you hate the West in general or just some aspects of modern society? Also, when you say the Enlightenment, which one? It meant different things to different people in different parts of the world.

You talk about human nature. For someone that talks about the Enlightenment, did you even read Hobbs and the Leviathan?

"From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to endeavor peace, is derived this second law: that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself"

In a state of nature, no man is born superior to others and every human being is capable of killing any other. “Even the strongest must sleep; even the weakest might persuade others to help him kill another.” That's the human nature and why it's so silly you mention caste as the natural order. If anything, caste is an extreme example of artificial construct.

I would suggest you re-read Hobbs, Locke and Rosseau. In that order and then ask yourself your questions again.
 
One of the upper ones, without a doubt.

That's always the case with right wingers when they fantasize about a system different from the current liberal one. Whether it's caste, monarchy, anarcho-capitalist or whatever, they are always at or near the top. Everyone else is unwashed, stupid, and ignorant so they get to be at the bottom, doing manual labor and not taking part in decision making.

Its the same of all illiberal idiots, i have yet to meet a Marxists that sees himself as a ditch-digger in the post-revolutionary society, they are all either going to be part of the intelligentsia or the revolutionary vanguard, i have yet to meet a single "seize the means of production" guy that says "man, i wish the revolution happened so i can work all day in a factory for zero pay while consuming just the bare minimum to survive".

Its always like that for those that argue against democracy, they basically want a society where only their worldview is valid... for the greater good of society of course, because they are selfless...
 
Unfettered free market Capitalism is a horrible economic system, and that's self-evident at this point. The right's "the free market will solve everything!" talking point from back in the day has become a tired joke. Here's what you get without heavy government regulation:

An unregulated market isn't a free market, an unregulated market is like trying to play soccer or basketball without a referee.

A free market is one that is regulated enough so that it evens the field as much as possible for all actors involved.
 
I’m not sure what the best way to organize society is, but an absolute monarchy isn’t it.

I think a pure democracy is also bad.

I would argue that the ideals of the Constitution is the closest thing to perfect there is, but it’s still flawed due to human nature being an ingredient in the equation.

An educated ruling class seems ideal, but you have to have movement in the classes in order for that to work. Human nature screws that up to.

I was intrigued by the civilian/citizen structure in Starship Troopers. If you are educated or serve in a formal sense, you get more voting rights than if you don’t.
 
Its the same of all illiberal idiots, i have yet to meet a Marxists that sees himself as a ditch-digger in the post-revolutionary society, they are all either going to be part of the intelligentsia or the revolutionary vanguard,
Lol, are you from the 1930s?Leninists/Maoists have been completely marginal in the left for the last 50 years or so. No one is calling for a Soviet-style command economy.

But one thing that hasn't changed is that labor movements back then and today all have their base in the ditch-digging class. Manual workers are the ones that want a difference arrangement in society, whether it's one where everyone shares all the undesirable work or one that highly compensates those that work in these areas.
 
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