Rolling Descent into Fascism Thread [chat away]

Depends what you mean by “the mainstream” here. She won’t be on BBC News any time soon but her point is to be a counterweight on YouTube above all else. Seeing as that’s where the people she’s trying to reach spend a lot of time watching, I dunno, right-wing YouTube or whatever you want to call it that’s exactly where she should be.

Think things like YouTube and Reddit are distorting our ideas of what constitutes “mainstream”. For people of a certain age and inclination, they ARE the mainstream.

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Yeah and she concedes respect herself also. For instance she’s very balanced/fair/even complimentary on both Peterson (in the vid about him) and Rubin (in the vid about free speech). Not so much with Ben Shapiro but that’s understandable.

It’s quite interesting watching the evolution from her early videos where she was explicitly centrist. She worked out that you have to play these people on their own turf, so to speak, and has become explicitly more “social justice” (for want of a better term).

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My concern is that the rightwing stuff will always flourish and be popular with sad young men because offers the easy answers, telling them what they want to hear. Messaging coming from the leftwing will always have to be couched in the idea that you’re going to have to fight and struggle and organise to achieve what you want, and these losers don’t want to hear that.

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Contrapoints’ thing is to swerve around that by making videos which are engaging aesthetically (as well as funny and accessible), which I think really works.

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I’ve not watched her stuff because I don’t watch anything on Youtube, but I heard her on Chapo and she seemed good.

I actually think that for all its faults, if you’ve got an angry teenage boy who’s sensibilities have been shaped by Call of Duty and South Park, Chapo offers a more viable route to progressive leftism than a two-hour Jordy Petez lecture leading you down a dark path.

Sure. But also I don’t think you should be attempting to corral everyone into ‘progressive leftism’ because, well, ~50% of any population is going to be temperamentally inclined towards conservatism. As much as I don’t care much for the guy I’d sooner those people binged on Peterson videos rather than a wealth of other grotesque stuff on right wing YouTube.

Nah, I want 100% of school leavers forming a revolutionary vanguard

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“Yes but have you watched this 15 hour YouTube video that shows he isnt”
:rofl:

I’ve started talking about socialism a lot in work. Not going down well but someone might listen.

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I’m not giving him any more of my time but why is it always an essay or hours of YouTube to prove him right.
Think post twitter means if you do anything more than a few sentences you’re a genius

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Eurgh ffs youtube
image

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Misclicked on this going into the ear gunk thread

Was v worried for ya

Yeah no that’s exactly as bad it sounds.

i find if i use left concepts without couching them in “lefty” terms people are more responsive, @safebruv. do you find this? like you can scoop up a fair number of people just by bonding over making fun of bosses and shared experience of shit pay/conditions.

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Technically I’m a boss but I encourage people to only work their hours and join a union.

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https://twitter.com/cflav/status/1087780498049564675

https://twitter.com/steamedhamms/status/1087821142902128641

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https://twitter.com/VICEUK/status/1087998901939040256

That article title is a bit:

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Yeah on this obviously he bangs on about “postmodern neo-marxism” and it is both ill-defined and sounding like a Cultural Marxist bogeyman (which I have absolutely no time for). However I was thinking back to when I was taught Theory at undergraduate level and there was definitely a focus on the meshing and reconciliation of po-mo thought (Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault) with Marxism (particularly that of Louis Althusser). Although this was > 15 years ago (lol) and how these things are taught may well have changed. Especially wrt to Althusser - not sure the ideas of someone who murdered his wife are particularly welcome in the academy.

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Yeah I think that’s a really good summary of it all actually, at least in line with what I understand about him. I don’t think that his oversimplification of “postmodern neo-marxism” is particularly egregious theoretically (again, it chimes in part with my experience at undergraduate level). The issue is the conspiratorial language he uses. I don’t think it’s especially dangerous fwiw “smugging Marxism in through the back door” or whatever he says (early Derrida being an actual Marxist notwithstanding). But how on earth can you teach philosophy/critical theory without reference to either postmodernism or Marxism??

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