vimothy

yurp
S'alright. There's a certain charm to your demanding unreasonableness.

I suppose that one thing is that you come across views that you initially find extreme or repellent, but then become normalised to as you continue to be exposed to them. Eventually, it's very hard to remember the strong reaction that you first had.

Another thing is that you discover someone who espouses extreme views who you find hard to dismiss--they're really smart maybe, or you just have some kind of affinity with them. Then that human connection can open you up and enable you to see them in their proper context, as rational and thoughtful and not just the ideology of them enemy.
 

vimothy

yurp
I remember reading Nick Land's blog and feeling quite shocked that here was someone who had written a book on George Bataille, who was therefore cool, praising Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. I found that weird and incongruous. It had never occurred to me that even a normal person could hold views like that, let alone someone who wrote post structuralist cyberpunk and had a blog full of obscure obscure musing about numerology and the occult significance of oil.
 

luka

Well-known member
yes i remember the hyperstition wars. land was certainly more intelligent than k-punk.
 

luka

Well-known member
but i also think that what you will find with a lot of people who are significantly more intelligent than their peers is that boredom leads them to trolling
 

luka

Well-known member
which is not to say i think land was being completely disingenuous. just that i think it was a factor, particularly when you factor in the amphetamine abuse.
 

luka

Well-known member
they will say things simply to provoke a fight, trusting in their ability to defend any position, regardless of how outre it is.
 

luka

Well-known member
they collect acolytes then become disgusted in their acolytes, and ashmed of thmselves for wanting them. thn they try to shed those acolytes, to wash away the shame.
 

luka

Well-known member
if you had attracted acolytes of the calibre of kpunk you would have wanted to shed them too i suspect.
 

vimothy

yurp
That's probably true. I don't think Land is much of an influence, or that we share a philosophy or anything. It's more that I was shocked that someone "cool" had views that my Dad would have regarded as conservative and reactionary. It just seemed, well, weird and incongruous. I didn't really know what to make of it.
 

luka

Well-known member
but you realised at that point that you couldnt simply dismiss those views and that if you want to be 'a serious character' in the Poundian sense (!) you had to engage with them. which i think is correct. so what did that lead you to?
 

vimothy

yurp
Exactly, there didn't seem any obvious reason why they shouldn't be taken seriously. They were clearly smart and well informed people--more so than me, at any rate.

I suppose that made me want to understand more about aspects of the world that didn't seem very important before that: geopolitics, economics, genetics, technology. Where did this stuff come from? It was very mysterious.
 

vimothy

yurp
But then you find yourself reading US policy types like Foreign Affairs, because if you want to know what's going on in the world, you might as well cut to the chase and go to the source. And so you find out, more shock and horror, that the people in power are actually very rational and thoughtful and engaged.
 

luka

Well-known member
you are still left with quite thorny questions however.... even if you accept they are not acting in bad faith...
 

luka

Well-known member
not that im suggesting 'the right' is a monolithic entity. oliver craner taught me that it is not. it was an important lesson.
 

luka

Well-known member
im beginning to suspect your 'politics' are in an embryonic, agnostic phase, which makes me much more sympathetic towards you.
 

luka

Well-known member
becasue that is the stage my 'politics' are in too. i admore you for studying economics although im not convinced you will find it that valuable ultimately.
 
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