Do we really want out?
you
Well-known member
No we shouldn't, you're totally right. There are heavily mediated experiences beyond the west of course.
I made that comment because I felt the line read as western culture being somehow more cerebral than others and less attuned to the body than others. Which isn't correct, and then there is the heavy demarcation between mind and body...
Leo
Well-known member
I was speaking in broader terms, about events in general, not specifically about war or violence.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
There are few greater pleasures in life than feeling simultaneously smug and snug.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Delivering a brutal zinger to some hapless rube on Twitter while curled up on the sofa with a cuppa and a cat.
version
Well-known member
You sound like Ian Dunt.
hmg
Victory lap
Blair witch project famously did this, albeit with a video camera, recording oneself to retreat from threat and horror, invoking modernity to ward off ancient evil. Watching Russian tanks getting popped from a drone's eye view is a variation on it.
shakahislop
Well-known member
i find for me there's a huge difference even between watching the news and reading the news. they provoke totally different feelings. i find watching video much more immediately emotional. whereas reading the news is a more dispassionate activity, more detached, a different perspective. i mostly read, and i'm always struck by how different any particular event seems when i watch it instead (usually in hotel rooms coz there's a tv, or at my mum and dad's house).
there's then again another form of mediation, a newer one, which is the analyst or personality who can pull together lots of different strands (of world events, cultural change, whatever) into a convincing worldview. i think these people really thrive on the podcast format. these are some of the most influential people i think, for internet-age people anyway. they can really get into your head and give you the frame through which you interpret whatever events are going on at any particular time. Helen Thompson is one of those for me, that has really altered the fundamental habits that I have for thinking about the big structural aspects of the world. Obviously a lot of these kinds of people are dicks but she's not. this is a form of mediation that I rely on a lot.
shakahislop
Well-known member
on the mediation of war strand of this, there is another thing going on there as well i think, which is that even if you're in a country where a war's going on, and to be honest even if you're directly involved in the fighting, most of what you understand about that war is still mediated. obviously if you are in the vicinity of a car bomb (and survive) then that is something that you directly experience. but if you're round the corner behind some buildings or 1k away or whatever, you might see a plume of smoke, but you are still mostly going to know about what happened from the TV or the radio. this obviously extends to what's going on with the war in other parts of the country. so people's experiences of wars are basically tech-mediated in most places
version
Well-known member
The awareness of being in the reported war zone must have an effect too though, much like learning COVID was actually happening where you were and not just in China.
version
Well-known member
It's interesting reading this and hearing how similar some of this lot's criticisms are to those on the left.
www.vanityfair.com
If you believe this story, marking yourself as a “nationalist,” as many Republican politicians now call themselves, or a “localist,” as *The American Conservative—*house organ of the anti-globalist right—proudly describes itself, this framing explains why our society seems to be spinning apart: The relentless power of markets has worked its way into every part of our lives, breaking down traditional cultures and modes of life, forcing us to live drone-like lives ordered by our phones and credit scores, leading to the mass export of jobs overseas, the destruction of the natural world, an internationalist foreign policy that costs trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, and even the destruction of institutions like the American family farm. It is, like Marxism was once for the global left, a story that is a bible to all the other stories you need to understand the world.
It's difficult to argue the above isn't broadly true, imo. The argument's really over how best to respond to it.
Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier: The American West
The dissident fringe is a space where far right and far left can coexist. And the Rockies are where they're headed.
If you believe this story, marking yourself as a “nationalist,” as many Republican politicians now call themselves, or a “localist,” as *The American Conservative—*house organ of the anti-globalist right—proudly describes itself, this framing explains why our society seems to be spinning apart: The relentless power of markets has worked its way into every part of our lives, breaking down traditional cultures and modes of life, forcing us to live drone-like lives ordered by our phones and credit scores, leading to the mass export of jobs overseas, the destruction of the natural world, an internationalist foreign policy that costs trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, and even the destruction of institutions like the American family farm. It is, like Marxism was once for the global left, a story that is a bible to all the other stories you need to understand the world.
It's difficult to argue the above isn't broadly true, imo. The argument's really over how best to respond to it.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It's hard not to facepalm if right-wingers are only now figuring out that the social and ecological consequences of centuries of unrestrained capitalism might not be entirely positive.It's interesting reading this and hearing how similar some of this lot's criticisms are to those on the left.
Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier: The American West
The dissident fringe is a space where far right and far left can coexist. And the Rockies are where they're headed.
If you believe this story, marking yourself as a “nationalist,” as many Republican politicians now call themselves, or a “localist,” as *The American Conservative—*house organ of the anti-globalist right—proudly describes itself, this framing explains why our society seems to be spinning apart: The relentless power of markets has worked its way into every part of our lives, breaking down traditional cultures and modes of life, forcing us to live drone-like lives ordered by our phones and credit scores, leading to the mass export of jobs overseas, the destruction of the natural world, an internationalist foreign policy that costs trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, and even the destruction of institutions like the American family farm. It is, like Marxism was once for the global left, a story that is a bible to all the other stories you need to understand the world.
It's difficult to argue the above isn't broadly true, imo. The argument's really over how best to respond to it.
Leo
Well-known member
sure, but realistically, most people don't think in those terms. they like the the ability to buy cheap goods at Walmart (even though they're made in China), and most likely avoid paying more for the equivalent goods made in America. guessing the focus of most people is on more day-to-day issues as opposed to the impact of unrestrained capitalism over the years. and then when that impact is felt, they react against it.
version
Well-known member
Who doesn't?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
As a para-Marxist misanthro-accelerationist, I want the exact opposite.