There is a tendency to be attracted to bad news. Is this regressivist? Are things getting worse? Is something called society fragmenting? In this episode we talk anthropology and animism, the bible and speculation, the academy and truth. Epistemic consistency for the win? We discuss mass shootings (con) and the social media ripple around it. Beta’s are discussed. and then society as framed by the book Enemies of Society.
We are still catching up (we recorded episode 9 last Friday). We hope to be caught up next week. This is the first episode where the sound has been fixed so… hurray!
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Ticktock
Listener Feedback @ 3:40
Feralism
animism
stories vs empiricism
Mass Shootings @ 15:00
beta uprising
elliot rodger
manifestos (racist, wingnut, beta, bullied)
horrorshow pornography
the decay of society is here? and it’s the angry young man (aka patriarchy)
the alphas, the betas, and the property
a theory of society
The statistical decline of violence
freakonomics
Society @ 37:40
Enemies of Society
mass anonymity
definition as a frame of reference or a strawman
the end of history and Thatcher
anxiety
Is society the ur-oppositional statement of purpose?
Did society come first or civilization?
bolo bolo
JZ’s show vs Urban Scout
URLs
Lincoln Finch blog
God is Red
Motte and Bailey
Auditing Shooting Rampage Stats
Freakonomics
Knabb preface
Enemies of Society
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4 Comments
Hey I didn’t mean to make a “grab bag of accusations” but to inquire into your side of things. No hostility on my part; I’m too new to this area of thought to be accusing. Great reply to the consistency thing though, since you say (from the nihilist perspective I assume) no model for a future world is privileged but is met with equal skepticism. That’s what you said right? Also I’m not sure how consistency is a sign of neurosis, but I too question consistency insofar as I question Aristotle’s laws of logic.
Hope to have more dialogue but I mean no hostility because I’m rather enjoying thinking about the difference between primitivism and nihilism.
@ Lincoln Finch
I sensed more that the demand/expectation for consistency is considered neurotic by A!. However, ‘consistency’ may have, and may be employed with here, at least two different senses.
First, the demand/expectation: ‘Consistency’ is one of those ambiguous, spooky words which, in my opinion, one never may never live up to precisely cuz from its very roots* the sense has been inertia/inactivity, the very opposite of living. So, to demand any living form to be consistent is to insidiously insist upon their death…
Second, and interwoven with the above, it depends on whether one’s starting point is the deeply rooted, and mostly unquestioned, modernist presumption that we live in a world surrounded by inert ‘matter,’ as ‘reality.’ If so, then consistency (inertia/inactivity) is an indelible aspect of our condition. Parmenides seemed to have believed so, as has the dominating thread of Western thought.
Perhaps these two senses of ‘consistency,’ a demand placed socially/communicatively and a metaphysical ideal of how reality ‘is’ or ‘works,’ are simply two expressions of the neurotic world-view first formulated by Aristotle in shorthand as ‘the law of identity’ and later given popular articulation in modernity by Popeye and Mr. Ed: “I am what I am!”/ “A horse is a horse…”
*https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consisto#Latin
Are my ears correct in that they hear Aragorn! describing himself in pick-up artist terms as an alpha when around 27.40 he says
“… put it all on the line, in a way that the alphas never do. The alphas in general, ‘real men’ in this world, don’t have a rich inner life. We don’t. And uh, so this person actually …”
It’s the “we” that I’m referring to.
And if so, I’m interested to hear more about this, for probably obvious reasons.
I think that the broader conversation is how to include more voices in the movement for an anti-authoritarian society. “Beta” male invisibility is a creation of class society and we do not want a discourse that replicates that structure of hierarchical worth. If we have a conversation that replicates the hierarchicalism of men that comes from class society and have it in the name of stigmatizing certain men then we are no better than the militarists or the “tough on crime” politicians of the 80’s.
I would say for “incels” the same as I would say for Valerie Solanas, that the solution to forms of reactionary gender hatred is more unity in the face of what truly dehumanizes us and that is exploitation. An invitation to dialogue for both is not the same as agreeing. Appealing to working class “betas” as workers with a common class interest with other workers is not the same as giving sanction to their ideology. A lot of them are young people who may benefit from the friendship of mentors and (hopefully) wise elders. Thanks for letting me have my say.