My Former Life as a Radical

Deplorable Yankee

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Feb 7, 2019
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To understand what it’s like to be a radical, it helps to speak to those once held under the sway of a radical ideology. Broadly defined, radicalism implies a rejection of compromise and incremental progress in favor of radical change, and for years I believed that Western capitalist society was beyond redemption and in need of a sweeping revolution. There were those who perpetuated a system of oppression and exploitation, and those who sought to overthrow it.

In The Uses of Pessimism and the Danger of False Hope, the philosopher Roger Scruton outlines the fallacies underlying this mindset, such as “the best case fallacy,” which “imagines the best outcome and assumes that it need consider no other,” and “the utopian fallacy,” which insists that the perfect is the enemy of the good. These can be summed up under the rubric of “unscrupulous optimism,” a concept originally coined by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Assuming that intentions translate directly into results, radicals tend to be unscrupulous optimists in that they operate on the premise that well-intentioned radical change, however destructive, can only lead to improvement.

They forget, however, that “human societies may retrogress disastrously,” as the economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell puts it in his analysis of Marxism. “Ignoring the dangers of retrogression can mean sliding into the belief that ‘nothing could be worse’ than the existing society being criticized.” This belief is reinforced by a tendency to compare the status quo not to history but to an imaginary future of human perfection. Any society that falls short of this fantasy is seen as an abomination. This can lead to false and dangerous equivalencies. It may, for instance, obfuscate the distinction between democracy and autocracy, between being governed and being ruled, which, from a utopian standpoint, can seem like a distinction without a difference.


This attitude often goes hand in hand with what Scruton calls “the born free fallacy”—the view that the laws and institutions of modern civilized society reduce human freedom. In fact, as the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker expertly demonstrates in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, these laws and institutions free us from living in constant fear and danger of violent death. Much the same is true for poverty, famine, and a host of other scourges, which have also declined thanks to what the MIT scientist Andrew McAfee calls “the four horsemen”: capitalism, technological progress, public awareness, and responsive government.


All links highlighted ...lil long and you can Read the rest @
My Former Life as a Radical - Quillette


Democrat socialist and the leftwing hate filled nazis ...minting new free thinking men and women from all walks of life on a daily basis
 
To understand what it’s like to be a radical, it helps to speak to those once held under the sway of a radical ideology. Broadly defined, radicalism implies a rejection of compromise and incremental progress in favor of radical change, and for years I believed that Western capitalist society was beyond redemption and in need of a sweeping revolution. There were those who perpetuated a system of oppression and exploitation, and those who sought to overthrow it.

In The Uses of Pessimism and the Danger of False Hope, the philosopher Roger Scruton outlines the fallacies underlying this mindset, such as “the best case fallacy,” which “imagines the best outcome and assumes that it need consider no other,” and “the utopian fallacy,” which insists that the perfect is the enemy of the good. These can be summed up under the rubric of “unscrupulous optimism,” a concept originally coined by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Assuming that intentions translate directly into results, radicals tend to be unscrupulous optimists in that they operate on the premise that well-intentioned radical change, however destructive, can only lead to improvement.

They forget, however, that “human societies may retrogress disastrously,” as the economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell puts it in his analysis of Marxism. “Ignoring the dangers of retrogression can mean sliding into the belief that ‘nothing could be worse’ than the existing society being criticized.” This belief is reinforced by a tendency to compare the status quo not to history but to an imaginary future of human perfection. Any society that falls short of this fantasy is seen as an abomination. This can lead to false and dangerous equivalencies. It may, for instance, obfuscate the distinction between democracy and autocracy, between being governed and being ruled, which, from a utopian standpoint, can seem like a distinction without a difference.


This attitude often goes hand in hand with what Scruton calls “the born free fallacy”—the view that the laws and institutions of modern civilized society reduce human freedom. In fact, as the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker expertly demonstrates in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, these laws and institutions free us from living in constant fear and danger of violent death. Much the same is true for poverty, famine, and a host of other scourges, which have also declined thanks to what the MIT scientist Andrew McAfee calls “the four horsemen”: capitalism, technological progress, public awareness, and responsive government.


All links highlighted ...lil long and you can Read the rest @
My Former Life as a Radical - Quillette


Democrat socialist and the leftwing hate filled nazis ...minting new free thinking men and women from all walks of life on a daily basis
I'm just grateful for the Walk Away society. More good people in the DNC are walking away after seeing the Speaker tearing up an important document that spoke fairly at the State of the Union Speech. Not everybody buys meanness as a common goal for American politics.All Nancy Pelosi does lately is to make a scene when the President speaks, and then runs away from her responsibilities. No real leader does that. It's too bad for us all that the Democrats have never given President Trump a chance. People look and see and figure that if they can do that to a President, what will they do to an older person who has always been conservative, and what will they do to me?
 
When I read this the engines in my head start s pinning what's his background and the a half zillion questions start popping ...hes clearly "Higher Ed"...
He doesnt go into to much personal detail

A lot of great comments there in the comment section a few good insights for normies to absorb

Some one mentions" cult like "...there in the comments like some of us do here on usmb
They are brainwashed ...I cut them some slack especially in meatspace ...its like they just broke free from a cult ...It really kinda is

While they get cursed at and ridiculed by thier former fellow cult members for opening thier eyes and mouths ....we turn around and hug them and welcome them back to reality ..

Like the girl last week who couldnt belive how nice people were to her at a trump rally
And she couldnt also believe trump supporters were openly criticizing .... chatting about what they hated and loved above about the crazy man ...at the rally..
white.jpg
 
I feel sorry for those extreme radicals who belittle people who disagree with some of their beliefs.

Some of those extreme radicals (or their loved ones) may (sadly) be the victims of senseless violent crime someday. They will then realize how wrong that they were to hold certain beliefs.

A wise person once said something like: Hell is discovering the truth too late.
 
I think "white" the way its used by radical leftist is more akin to a quasi-Marxist notion or stereotype of the "bourgeoise" rather than something specifically "racial", but that's just my own intuition.

Cults (as defined on the basis of their behavior or motus operanda, rather than in a notion of being dedicated to a figure or idea, and not necessarily "bad" in that regard, whether the "cult" of Christ or the "cult" of Reason), tend to come and go and prey on those unintelligent enough or undiscerning in their personal boundaries enough to be lured or suckered into one to begin with, whether these cabals of freaks on social media and their desperate 'recruitment' attempts, or anyone and anything else.
 

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