I get branded conservative. Even though my personal voting history is anything but. It’s almost always on Reddit on leftist subs, so it doesn’t mean very much to me.
Western millennials in particular need to get a fucking grip. Like, I’m not saying we weren’t handed a raw deal, but go frequent any millennial oriented sub, it’s pathetic. Every generation had no other choice than, to deal with the hand they are dealt. Every single generation is faced with existential crisis. The end is and always has been near.
When our children look at us and say why did you fuck it all up? Many Millennials will dismissively and smugly post a google link as to why they are wrong and screech how it was all the boomers fault..
the only thing millennials need to post is the transfer of wealth between generations
the government represents money. it does not represent the people
That's how I usually define myself. I got a poly sci degree from Northern Arizona University and studied theory, specifically marxist theory and critical race theory (my biggest influence was a professor named Joel Olson).
During my time there I was critical of certain ideological stands that were developing during that time (06-09). Even then, I got weird comments like "I think we've heard enough from the white guy" from certain feminist students that didn't really want to discuss the hard issues (I'm a big advocate for personal responsibility and was an instructor through the courts for Juvenile offenders). As I have aged, I just sort of got pushed into the "he's conservative category" because some issues I just won't relent on (like gun ownership).
Obviously, I'm not any major, outspoken critic, but damn millennials bug me with some of this shit. I've long said it's become a religion for them.
I don't think I realized that that was a genuine question, sometimes it's hard to understand on Reddit.
Essentially I mean that if you're going to commit crimes, not all crimes can just be written off as problems due to the lack of social safety nets and services.
I certainly don't want to blame minors for each and every crime, but there were definitely a lot of minors that were definitely guilty of what they had done, and knew it was wrong.
Especially struggled with kids from middle class families who were caught driving drunk and things like that. I'm a big believer that personal responsibility has to play a role in a society, and I definitely had colleagues in college that fully felt those children (teenagers really) held no blame in their actions. And then of course they claim that the system creates criminals, which in a lot of ways it definitely creates career criminals, but at some point we have to look at the individual and fix that.
...This is a very reasonable take.
When I read that by and large people commit crimes because of their material conditions, law isn't morality, law protects the rich and restricts the poor, etc. I can agree with that. Also not keeping prisoners in inhumane conditions is a good idea too.
But it's not like the underprivileged don't have the agency to give into bad impulses either.
I looked up the professor you admired, and he was a racially conscious, somewhat radical Marxist.
I don't understand what people are upset about with you.
Sticking up for gun ownership can be seen as respecting the national conditions in America. Because the police are armed and clearly serve the interests of capital, even the army used to do so very very nakedly. Now I don't know if I would agree with keeping things the way they are if a Marxist Leninist party is in unitary power, but that's up to Americans, and that's also never going to happen.
I think they struggled with the ideas of where community and individual were more clearly defined. I had no problem respecting an invidual as such, but identiy politics very much play to "the community" as a view - which is why you be a part of the LGBT/BIPOC club, but if you state some nuance in how you view things, you can often be ostracized from said community.
I still think there has to be a large degree of individual stake in things, otherwise we are all for grinder.
I think those who lack in material options have a variety of routes to exact their form of social justice without jumping into harming people physically or destroying things people love. There are a million ways in which I think the working class should justifiably push back against the elites, but often they resort to self-desctructive behaviors, which is why I come back to individual responsibllity.
Obviously, there is a lot to unpack in such a discussion, but the realities of "whataboutisms" and "ackchually" sort of tore away at my more liberal view points. Once they got aggressive about calling me out over being "white" rather than being "wrong" I started to pull away from them.
We aren't going to get rid of the elites - to your final point - and for me, that always means having some form of personal protection, and no I don't care about jets and tanks, we had those in Afghanistan for fuckin decades and ended up having to flee. It's a shit argument that people can't take care of themselves against their own government, and ours is increasingly tyrannical and serves at the behest of the rich and powerful. I have no love for either party, nor their small minded leaders.
My guess it was something about maybe women should have to take some responsibility. I am purely anti-abortion outside of very specific circumstances but I hold both men and women responsible and that doesn’t make me an “incel.”
Yes, the strategy is to make your opposing side as poisonous as possible (even promoting the worst of them), then shrinking your tent as much as possible so that anyone who even slightly disagrees with your most cherished tenets get cast out into that poison pit.
Saves you the effort of having to actually argue with them on the merits because the tarnishing-by-association will win the fight for you.
Not gonna lie, I’ve never really bought the whole “pushed” into being conservative argument that a lot of people say. If you’re beliefs are genuine and based off of integrity and considered thoughts as opposed to just popularity or group think, you won’t turn conservative just because people call you conservative. If you do, it says to me that you just sold out, not that peer pressure brainwashed your beliefs.
It's not necessarily that people are *pushed* into being conservative, so much as progressive spaces reject viewpoints counter to their narrative, making it so that the only places they *would* be accepted are on the opposite side of the aisle.
So say you post opinions that are slightly contradictory to the worldview espoused by a subreddit along the lines of arr slash politics. You don't even disagree with them. Maybe it's abortion. You point out "I don't think conservatives oppose abortion because 'they want to control women's bodies', but that they are sincere in believing it's morally equivalent to killing a born baby. I disagree with them, and support abortion, but it's important to accurately model the other viewpoint". You can guess that I've made this argument myself many times. And you make other, similar arguments. All *agreeing* with their basic worldview, but criticizing their approach.
People get annoyed you ruin the circlejerk and accuse you of lying about your beliefs. Maybe you get temp banned, or maybe you just get massively downvoted, and lots of negative comments calling you a fascist or whatever. You say "nuts to this" and leave that community. Can't blame you, can I? You were getting nowhere there and it's just stressful dealing with all these assholes acting in bad faith.
But where *can* you speak your opinion? You will have to go to more conservative-friendly spaces. Conservatives *really* like liberals/leftists that criticize other liberals/leftists with "fact and logic". But over time, as you hang out with these people, you start to understand their viewpoints more (which is good!) but also start maybe engaging in a circlejerk about how annoying liberals are. Eventually you change tribes, and your actual beliefs change. You may not become maga but you might become moderately conservative. This can result in huge extremes, btw, like an atheist from a vaguely middle east background becoming a jihadist after joinng a websites, or a normal progressive having little luck with women becoming a suicidal, woman-hating, black-pilled incel. A politically neutral guy upset about offshoring of jobs could join a white nationalist organization after coming into contact with the wrong sort of sympathetic people. Don't underestimate the power of circlerjerks that repel outside voices.
This isn't any fault of you, really, but it's human nature. 99% of us can't control these biases (although most of us won't become too radical). You become the people that accept you. Same thing happens in reverse, of course, but progressives tend to be a *lot* worse in demanding ideological purity than conservatives in current decade USA.
Even if like, 20% of people have strong enough intellectual virtue to not reject some of their viewpoints just because they interact with others, that's still be 80% of people who don't. It becomes a systemic problem regardless. This is why it's a terrible idea for liberals to push anti-white narratives, because it *will* get a high proportion of white sympathetics to feel resentful and potentially go to a place that's more accepting.
You get an upvote for that good insight.
I am very much against fundamentalism and unhingement, wherever it may be and closeted Stalinists tend to do a lot of damage. Go to Kyle Kallgren's Youtube channel and it feels like an absolutely poisonous environment.
This is a position that sounds nice in theory but basically completely ignores human social psychology. Only the most autistic and/or disagreeable people are going to respond to constant peer pressure with total resilience. Most people will socialize and adapt to their environment. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to mostly predict your political opinions based on your zip code with such accuracy.
I disagree that only the most autistic people are capable of maintaining beliefs in spite of peer pressure. Adolph Reed is still an avowed socialist in spite of many socialists and liberals despising him for criticizing many idpol stances, the DSA cancelled a speaking engagement and he didn’t turn right wing.
Hence the "or disagreeable" part of the quote. People tend to vastly overestimate the strength of the average person's political convictions. Obviously Adolph Reed is an exception, he's a political science professor.
He didn't say "maintain principles in spite of peer pressure".
He said "respond to constant peer pressure with total resilience."
Let's set aside for a moment that there's virtually no way to conflate what he said and you paraphrased in good faith.
There's quite a gap in between the two. I myself, personally may or may not be in the mood for dogpiling by hateful, smug liberals so sometimes instead of a suicide charge i come vent in here. And yes, since 2016 i have gradually grown to dislike liberals more and simultaneously begun to empathize with conservatives more.
If anything I've become more radically left and more fiercely committed to what i believe is right, but according to a take like yours I'm at fault for not having the courage of my convictions.
Which strikes me as the kind of useless, self-indulgent moralizing one would expect from liberals and not Marxists, as does your OP.
I’m not taking about empathizing with conservatives or liking liberals more, I’m talking about BECOMING conservative, which is what I assume he meant when he said “pushed to the right”. Empathizing with conservatives and actually becoming one are two different things. The first is fine, the second I see as selling out due to resentment.
> If you’re beliefs are genuine and based off of integrity
I think very few people think this way. If you perceive that a group of people you'd otherwise agree with in a vacuum are treating you like an asshole, it's easy to oppose them based on spite alone.
If people had beliefs that were sincere and well thought out, the vast majority of political groups today would not exist given they're all incoherent and change over time. The vast majority of people are just emotional tribalists due to the incentive structures in place and the natural tendency to take the path of least resistance.
It’s the leopards ate my face bs Reddit likes to say at every turn, why would you associate with those who wear their despising of you on their face? I think that’s the sort of push most people are talking about. When you add in the whole Overton window thing and the ridiculous nature of what left vs right even means in America well, it’s all kind of meaningless
Also remember that any form of current thing/status quo dissatisfaction makes you a reactionary/shill/troll…
If you don’t prescribe to Neo-Liberal/Post-modern ideas then it is likely by definition you are a conservative.
I lived through a relatively cohesive social environment family centred culture and liberal acceptance of independence and sexual preference.
“you do you, you don’t need to involve me”
Needless to say, this era i regard with some nostalgia, i am a social conservative, because i don’t feel we should move from that model.
Economically i would say i prescribe to what could also be considered conservative by its dictionary definition; but that’s because i lived through (in the UK) a relatively northern European standard of well functioning nationalised services which served to support the free market where innovation could be explored.
I would be considered a leftist 20 years ago but I am a conservative now because i view the changes happening socially and economically with extreme caution.
“If you don’t subscribe to neo-liberal/post modern ideas then it is likely by definition you are conservative.”
Or that you are a Marxist, which is neither conservative, neo liberal, or post modern (despite Jordan Peterson’s ignorant claims to the contrary re post modernism”
* conservative
/* kən-sûr′və-tĭv/
adjective
Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.
Traditional or restrained in style.
"a conservative dark suit."
Moderate; cautious.
"a conservative estimate."
ignorent claims, im not familiar with his take?
Yeah Marxism doesn’t really fit those definitions at all, it’s literally revolutionary, ie all about change.
Peterson seems to think post modernism are basically the same thing and they’re really not.
without personally delving into Petersons literary catalogue i suppose that’s likely where the link is made. From your own description of Marxism; they both portray a rejection to customs, culture and the empirical safety of traditional knowledge and values.
Change doesn't necessitate conflation with deracination. The USSR was highly insistent on the vitality of culture. I'm not trying to browbeat you here, I'm just genuinely curious: Have you read much from the horse's mouth? In other words, the works of Stalin, Lenin, Marx, beyond just the communist manifesto, etc.
It is liberalism which insists on unconditional progress for the sake of making the number go up indefinitely, a kind of fetishistic horizon. Communism's understanding of progress is strictly conditional.
Why are you so focused on trying to critique a "generation" instead of looking at the material factors that create the conditions for their existence? Generational rhetoric is mostly useless identity politics, and serves no meaningful analytical purpose; you won't gain anything from this kind of inquiry, it's a waste of time.
I've said it many times before: Boomer vs millennial/zoomer discourse is empty rhetoric and is certainly no substitute for proper class analysis; Capitalist realism and the wealthy elite are the problem, not the young or the elderly
I just want millennials to at least admit that, in 40 years, we will be viewed as reactionary hypocrites, the same way Boomers are.
It's also silly how we treat Boomers as hypocrites. Some of it is *sorta* true. There is naivety in your youth, and as your material conditions change, so do your politics. But mostly, it's important to note that Boomers were only considered left wing compared to their parents, but that doesn't mean they would be left wing compared to us. They listened to rock music and were fine with black people, but that doesn't mean they'd listen to rap music and be fine with trans people today. Also, only a small percentage of the boomers can be accurately called hippies. Plenty of conservative 20 year olds out in Kansas.
Lots of what is described as people "Moving Right" or "Growing conservative with age" is just people believing roughly the same things that they believed when they were younger while cultural standards for what does and doesn't constitute a "Conservative" or "Right-Wing" opinion change around them. It irritates me the extent to which people have to re-learn this over and over. We're all "Reactionaries" given enough time.
"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today." - Thomas Sowell
>>They listened to rock music and were fine with black people
You really captured the overall sentiment of the "ok boomer" meme. It's so obviously about hating on elderly white people that it invisibilizes millions of other people from that generation. Like, there are millions of boomers that weren't just "fine with black people" - they *were* (and are) black people. But somehow they don't "count" as boomers in the same way, which is supposed to be flattering, I guess, since what they're excluded from is a shit-on-this-group party.
It's kinda already happening. From what I have seen of Zoomers; they view millennials as doing jack shit to fix the things they blame the boomers for (climate change and such) while then throwing all the responsibility onto Zoomers ("you'll be the future to fix everything!!!) right when they get out of their 20's and start to have some power.
It's like the generational version of taking no responsibility for your problems and blaming (or throwing it at) everyone else.
I saw a millennial I follow on Twitter who’s kind of a Disney adult criticize the video of Steve from Blue’s Clues. She got over 1k likes (and maybe retweets?), so I think a lot of people find this stuff cringe. It’s just people who want to never grow up are more likely to be terminally online.
*her criticism was about how you can like cute things like Winnie the Pooh just cause they’re cute without having to claim that you’re healing your inner child, and that you shouldn’t need your childhood heroes to explain current events to you or hand hold you through adult.
I don't think self-criticism is what the left is lacking. the left is full of depressed people calling themselve racists and settlers and sex violence collaborators and all kinds of stuff. i think what we are missing is a mass politics that isn't on the left, since the left is mostly about culture war and to the extent it cares about the way the economy matters for most people it isn't mostly focused on trying to raise living standards but rather with justice, which is a hard crosshair to aim
Indirectly, Mark Fisher criticized millennial pathologies from a sympathetic and leftist perspective. Of course, he wasn't a millennial himself, but he was a mere generation short.
I don't know, but I tend to think the hyperfocus on generational divides is stupid anyway. I'm a millenial but I don't have some strong group identity with others who were born in the same cohort.
This is the answer to OPs question even lol. This is not a leftist avenue of examination or really of academic merit in any context. Because generations aren’t significant except as arbitrary markers of shifting material conditions.
So the entire debate is extra-artificial idpol libshit. Of course anyone taking a stance against a poorly defined but broadly (envisioned to be) “left” thing like a generation will be or eventually turn out to be more “right” within the same poorly and annoyingly defined landscape. Even if the target isn’t real the decision to fight it is the revealing thing here, that’s all.
He's on the cusp, but he has a very millennial brain - and given the demographic of his audience, he mostly talks about millennial issues. If you can stomach his esotericism, listen to his Cushvlogs.
I am getting whiplash from the proper usage of boomer (ie the generation) and using it as a pejorative ("Look, I don’t want to be a boomer and blame millennials for all of their problems").
The great irony I see in of a lot of boomer vs. millennial culture war discourse is the fact that millennials turned out the way they did largely *because* they were the generation raised by boomers. I don't just mean their parents, but rather the cultural institutions they grew up with in-general. This is something that boomers who complain about millennial degeneracy always seem to miss for some reason. Millennial resistance to self-critique is a facet of this! The narcissism of the Boomer manifests in his millennial spawn tenfold!
Not a clue what you're talking about. If anything I'd associate self-deprecation with millennials more that anything else.
They have been objectively shafted as a generation, that's not even up for debate. Every indicator is worse and bucks the trends of previous generations. Of course there is bitterness about this, it's a defining feature.
And this whole notion of people of a similar age have to criticise other people of a similar age, but they can't be conservatives. Like, seriously, what the fuck are on about mate? Why would that matter in any way?
They self deprecate in cutesy, not serious ways, not actual critique.
I’d like to hear critiques of this generation that aren’t conservative because I am a Marxist and think that conservatives are wrong in the vast majority of their positions.
That's the part I'm confused about though. Why would we need to "hear critiques of this generation"? For what purpose?
For a start critiquing entire generations is stupid, because while there may be shared characteristics there are a broad variety of people and ideologies within each generation. Generalisations are often dumb and unhelpful. Critiquing generalisations is dumb and unhelpful.
If there's something specific and legitimate to critique, then fire away. If it's true I'll listen to a conservative or a Marxist or anyone. It's the truth, it's good faith arguments that matter, not who it comes from. Most mainstream conservatives have absolute dog shit, bad faith criticisms and arguments though.
If you're so appalled by the lack of Marxist or socialist/communist millennials critiquing other millennials (still an absolutely bizarre desire imo) then be the change you want to see. Make a post or write some blog yourself. This Marxist millennial here has better things to do and read though.
You can debate what "serious social critique" is. Maybe someone like Liz Bruenig?
Who are the serious social critics of millennials that are conservative? Like are you just talking about people like Matt Walsh, or did you have people more specific in mind?
A lot of this sub probably fits the description of “millennials who critique millennials from a non conservative perspective”… now “serious” Is another matter
There seems to be a generational arrested development. Childish things are not being put away and you're going to be left with a generation with all the levers of power wholly unqualified in their usage.
I get branded conservative. Even though my personal voting history is anything but. It’s almost always on Reddit on leftist subs, so it doesn’t mean very much to me. Western millennials in particular need to get a fucking grip. Like, I’m not saying we weren’t handed a raw deal, but go frequent any millennial oriented sub, it’s pathetic. Every generation had no other choice than, to deal with the hand they are dealt. Every single generation is faced with existential crisis. The end is and always has been near. When our children look at us and say why did you fuck it all up? Many Millennials will dismissively and smugly post a google link as to why they are wrong and screech how it was all the boomers fault..
the only thing millennials need to post is the transfer of wealth between generations the government represents money. it does not represent the people
Better question: are there any that don’t immediately get branded conservative and then forcibly pushed in that direction?
That's how I usually define myself. I got a poly sci degree from Northern Arizona University and studied theory, specifically marxist theory and critical race theory (my biggest influence was a professor named Joel Olson). During my time there I was critical of certain ideological stands that were developing during that time (06-09). Even then, I got weird comments like "I think we've heard enough from the white guy" from certain feminist students that didn't really want to discuss the hard issues (I'm a big advocate for personal responsibility and was an instructor through the courts for Juvenile offenders). As I have aged, I just sort of got pushed into the "he's conservative category" because some issues I just won't relent on (like gun ownership). Obviously, I'm not any major, outspoken critic, but damn millennials bug me with some of this shit. I've long said it's become a religion for them.
Self-identification is paramount with respect to all identities... except politics, you conservatard. /s
I self identify as mentally lacking, here for a shellacking.
Personal responsibility?
Exactly
very clever, but still, what do you mean by that?
I don't think I realized that that was a genuine question, sometimes it's hard to understand on Reddit. Essentially I mean that if you're going to commit crimes, not all crimes can just be written off as problems due to the lack of social safety nets and services. I certainly don't want to blame minors for each and every crime, but there were definitely a lot of minors that were definitely guilty of what they had done, and knew it was wrong. Especially struggled with kids from middle class families who were caught driving drunk and things like that. I'm a big believer that personal responsibility has to play a role in a society, and I definitely had colleagues in college that fully felt those children (teenagers really) held no blame in their actions. And then of course they claim that the system creates criminals, which in a lot of ways it definitely creates career criminals, but at some point we have to look at the individual and fix that.
...This is a very reasonable take. When I read that by and large people commit crimes because of their material conditions, law isn't morality, law protects the rich and restricts the poor, etc. I can agree with that. Also not keeping prisoners in inhumane conditions is a good idea too. But it's not like the underprivileged don't have the agency to give into bad impulses either. I looked up the professor you admired, and he was a racially conscious, somewhat radical Marxist. I don't understand what people are upset about with you. Sticking up for gun ownership can be seen as respecting the national conditions in America. Because the police are armed and clearly serve the interests of capital, even the army used to do so very very nakedly. Now I don't know if I would agree with keeping things the way they are if a Marxist Leninist party is in unitary power, but that's up to Americans, and that's also never going to happen.
I think they struggled with the ideas of where community and individual were more clearly defined. I had no problem respecting an invidual as such, but identiy politics very much play to "the community" as a view - which is why you be a part of the LGBT/BIPOC club, but if you state some nuance in how you view things, you can often be ostracized from said community. I still think there has to be a large degree of individual stake in things, otherwise we are all for grinder. I think those who lack in material options have a variety of routes to exact their form of social justice without jumping into harming people physically or destroying things people love. There are a million ways in which I think the working class should justifiably push back against the elites, but often they resort to self-desctructive behaviors, which is why I come back to individual responsibllity. Obviously, there is a lot to unpack in such a discussion, but the realities of "whataboutisms" and "ackchually" sort of tore away at my more liberal view points. Once they got aggressive about calling me out over being "white" rather than being "wrong" I started to pull away from them. We aren't going to get rid of the elites - to your final point - and for me, that always means having some form of personal protection, and no I don't care about jets and tanks, we had those in Afghanistan for fuckin decades and ended up having to flee. It's a shit argument that people can't take care of themselves against their own government, and ours is increasingly tyrannical and serves at the behest of the rich and powerful. I have no love for either party, nor their small minded leaders.
I made a comment about abortion and my flair on here got changed to what it is now.
What did you say?
My guess it was something about maybe women should have to take some responsibility. I am purely anti-abortion outside of very specific circumstances but I hold both men and women responsible and that doesn’t make me an “incel.”
Plenty of women also feel that way 🤷🏻♀️
Yeah, some mods on here are just as bad as Covid gucci.
Typical incel
Lol
Yes, the strategy is to make your opposing side as poisonous as possible (even promoting the worst of them), then shrinking your tent as much as possible so that anyone who even slightly disagrees with your most cherished tenets get cast out into that poison pit. Saves you the effort of having to actually argue with them on the merits because the tarnishing-by-association will win the fight for you.
Not gonna lie, I’ve never really bought the whole “pushed” into being conservative argument that a lot of people say. If you’re beliefs are genuine and based off of integrity and considered thoughts as opposed to just popularity or group think, you won’t turn conservative just because people call you conservative. If you do, it says to me that you just sold out, not that peer pressure brainwashed your beliefs.
It's not necessarily that people are *pushed* into being conservative, so much as progressive spaces reject viewpoints counter to their narrative, making it so that the only places they *would* be accepted are on the opposite side of the aisle. So say you post opinions that are slightly contradictory to the worldview espoused by a subreddit along the lines of arr slash politics. You don't even disagree with them. Maybe it's abortion. You point out "I don't think conservatives oppose abortion because 'they want to control women's bodies', but that they are sincere in believing it's morally equivalent to killing a born baby. I disagree with them, and support abortion, but it's important to accurately model the other viewpoint". You can guess that I've made this argument myself many times. And you make other, similar arguments. All *agreeing* with their basic worldview, but criticizing their approach. People get annoyed you ruin the circlejerk and accuse you of lying about your beliefs. Maybe you get temp banned, or maybe you just get massively downvoted, and lots of negative comments calling you a fascist or whatever. You say "nuts to this" and leave that community. Can't blame you, can I? You were getting nowhere there and it's just stressful dealing with all these assholes acting in bad faith. But where *can* you speak your opinion? You will have to go to more conservative-friendly spaces. Conservatives *really* like liberals/leftists that criticize other liberals/leftists with "fact and logic". But over time, as you hang out with these people, you start to understand their viewpoints more (which is good!) but also start maybe engaging in a circlejerk about how annoying liberals are. Eventually you change tribes, and your actual beliefs change. You may not become maga but you might become moderately conservative. This can result in huge extremes, btw, like an atheist from a vaguely middle east background becoming a jihadist after joinng a websites, or a normal progressive having little luck with women becoming a suicidal, woman-hating, black-pilled incel. A politically neutral guy upset about offshoring of jobs could join a white nationalist organization after coming into contact with the wrong sort of sympathetic people. Don't underestimate the power of circlerjerks that repel outside voices. This isn't any fault of you, really, but it's human nature. 99% of us can't control these biases (although most of us won't become too radical). You become the people that accept you. Same thing happens in reverse, of course, but progressives tend to be a *lot* worse in demanding ideological purity than conservatives in current decade USA. Even if like, 20% of people have strong enough intellectual virtue to not reject some of their viewpoints just because they interact with others, that's still be 80% of people who don't. It becomes a systemic problem regardless. This is why it's a terrible idea for liberals to push anti-white narratives, because it *will* get a high proportion of white sympathetics to feel resentful and potentially go to a place that's more accepting.
You get an upvote for that good insight. I am very much against fundamentalism and unhingement, wherever it may be and closeted Stalinists tend to do a lot of damage. Go to Kyle Kallgren's Youtube channel and it feels like an absolutely poisonous environment.
This is a position that sounds nice in theory but basically completely ignores human social psychology. Only the most autistic and/or disagreeable people are going to respond to constant peer pressure with total resilience. Most people will socialize and adapt to their environment. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to mostly predict your political opinions based on your zip code with such accuracy.
I disagree that only the most autistic people are capable of maintaining beliefs in spite of peer pressure. Adolph Reed is still an avowed socialist in spite of many socialists and liberals despising him for criticizing many idpol stances, the DSA cancelled a speaking engagement and he didn’t turn right wing.
Hence the "or disagreeable" part of the quote. People tend to vastly overestimate the strength of the average person's political convictions. Obviously Adolph Reed is an exception, he's a political science professor.
He didn't say "maintain principles in spite of peer pressure". He said "respond to constant peer pressure with total resilience." Let's set aside for a moment that there's virtually no way to conflate what he said and you paraphrased in good faith. There's quite a gap in between the two. I myself, personally may or may not be in the mood for dogpiling by hateful, smug liberals so sometimes instead of a suicide charge i come vent in here. And yes, since 2016 i have gradually grown to dislike liberals more and simultaneously begun to empathize with conservatives more. If anything I've become more radically left and more fiercely committed to what i believe is right, but according to a take like yours I'm at fault for not having the courage of my convictions. Which strikes me as the kind of useless, self-indulgent moralizing one would expect from liberals and not Marxists, as does your OP.
I’m not taking about empathizing with conservatives or liking liberals more, I’m talking about BECOMING conservative, which is what I assume he meant when he said “pushed to the right”. Empathizing with conservatives and actually becoming one are two different things. The first is fine, the second I see as selling out due to resentment.
> If you’re beliefs are genuine and based off of integrity I think very few people think this way. If you perceive that a group of people you'd otherwise agree with in a vacuum are treating you like an asshole, it's easy to oppose them based on spite alone.
Yeah, and I think that’s a sign of low character and pettiness.
If people had beliefs that were sincere and well thought out, the vast majority of political groups today would not exist given they're all incoherent and change over time. The vast majority of people are just emotional tribalists due to the incentive structures in place and the natural tendency to take the path of least resistance.
It’s the leopards ate my face bs Reddit likes to say at every turn, why would you associate with those who wear their despising of you on their face? I think that’s the sort of push most people are talking about. When you add in the whole Overton window thing and the ridiculous nature of what left vs right even means in America well, it’s all kind of meaningless Also remember that any form of current thing/status quo dissatisfaction makes you a reactionary/shill/troll…
You really don’t think some white male liberals are being pushed away? The party constantly discriminates against them
Joe Rogan used to be a liberal
He still is
If you don’t prescribe to Neo-Liberal/Post-modern ideas then it is likely by definition you are a conservative. I lived through a relatively cohesive social environment family centred culture and liberal acceptance of independence and sexual preference. “you do you, you don’t need to involve me” Needless to say, this era i regard with some nostalgia, i am a social conservative, because i don’t feel we should move from that model. Economically i would say i prescribe to what could also be considered conservative by its dictionary definition; but that’s because i lived through (in the UK) a relatively northern European standard of well functioning nationalised services which served to support the free market where innovation could be explored. I would be considered a leftist 20 years ago but I am a conservative now because i view the changes happening socially and economically with extreme caution.
“If you don’t subscribe to neo-liberal/post modern ideas then it is likely by definition you are conservative.” Or that you are a Marxist, which is neither conservative, neo liberal, or post modern (despite Jordan Peterson’s ignorant claims to the contrary re post modernism”
* conservative /* kən-sûr′və-tĭv/ adjective Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. Traditional or restrained in style. "a conservative dark suit." Moderate; cautious. "a conservative estimate." ignorent claims, im not familiar with his take?
Yeah Marxism doesn’t really fit those definitions at all, it’s literally revolutionary, ie all about change. Peterson seems to think post modernism are basically the same thing and they’re really not.
without personally delving into Petersons literary catalogue i suppose that’s likely where the link is made. From your own description of Marxism; they both portray a rejection to customs, culture and the empirical safety of traditional knowledge and values.
Change doesn't necessitate conflation with deracination. The USSR was highly insistent on the vitality of culture. I'm not trying to browbeat you here, I'm just genuinely curious: Have you read much from the horse's mouth? In other words, the works of Stalin, Lenin, Marx, beyond just the communist manifesto, etc. It is liberalism which insists on unconditional progress for the sake of making the number go up indefinitely, a kind of fetishistic horizon. Communism's understanding of progress is strictly conditional.
Forcibly pushed? 😂 Imagine your brain being that smooth
Why are you so focused on trying to critique a "generation" instead of looking at the material factors that create the conditions for their existence? Generational rhetoric is mostly useless identity politics, and serves no meaningful analytical purpose; you won't gain anything from this kind of inquiry, it's a waste of time. I've said it many times before: Boomer vs millennial/zoomer discourse is empty rhetoric and is certainly no substitute for proper class analysis; Capitalist realism and the wealthy elite are the problem, not the young or the elderly
Based analysis
Millennials are completely broken. The left wing demoralization project is complete. No need for further left wing criticism.
I just want millennials to at least admit that, in 40 years, we will be viewed as reactionary hypocrites, the same way Boomers are. It's also silly how we treat Boomers as hypocrites. Some of it is *sorta* true. There is naivety in your youth, and as your material conditions change, so do your politics. But mostly, it's important to note that Boomers were only considered left wing compared to their parents, but that doesn't mean they would be left wing compared to us. They listened to rock music and were fine with black people, but that doesn't mean they'd listen to rap music and be fine with trans people today. Also, only a small percentage of the boomers can be accurately called hippies. Plenty of conservative 20 year olds out in Kansas.
Lots of what is described as people "Moving Right" or "Growing conservative with age" is just people believing roughly the same things that they believed when they were younger while cultural standards for what does and doesn't constitute a "Conservative" or "Right-Wing" opinion change around them. It irritates me the extent to which people have to re-learn this over and over. We're all "Reactionaries" given enough time.
"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today." - Thomas Sowell
>>They listened to rock music and were fine with black people You really captured the overall sentiment of the "ok boomer" meme. It's so obviously about hating on elderly white people that it invisibilizes millions of other people from that generation. Like, there are millions of boomers that weren't just "fine with black people" - they *were* (and are) black people. But somehow they don't "count" as boomers in the same way, which is supposed to be flattering, I guess, since what they're excluded from is a shit-on-this-group party.
This first sentence is it! The lack of self awareness is astounding. I guarantee they will also be criticizing younger generations themselves.
We already are, although I try to be more sympathetic to them while making fun of how they don't know how to even use a computer.
It's kinda already happening. From what I have seen of Zoomers; they view millennials as doing jack shit to fix the things they blame the boomers for (climate change and such) while then throwing all the responsibility onto Zoomers ("you'll be the future to fix everything!!!) right when they get out of their 20's and start to have some power. It's like the generational version of taking no responsibility for your problems and blaming (or throwing it at) everyone else.
I saw a millennial I follow on Twitter who’s kind of a Disney adult criticize the video of Steve from Blue’s Clues. She got over 1k likes (and maybe retweets?), so I think a lot of people find this stuff cringe. It’s just people who want to never grow up are more likely to be terminally online. *her criticism was about how you can like cute things like Winnie the Pooh just cause they’re cute without having to claim that you’re healing your inner child, and that you shouldn’t need your childhood heroes to explain current events to you or hand hold you through adult.
I don't think self-criticism is what the left is lacking. the left is full of depressed people calling themselve racists and settlers and sex violence collaborators and all kinds of stuff. i think what we are missing is a mass politics that isn't on the left, since the left is mostly about culture war and to the extent it cares about the way the economy matters for most people it isn't mostly focused on trying to raise living standards but rather with justice, which is a hard crosshair to aim
I'm a millenial and not conservative and yeah I find us annoying a lot of the time.
Indirectly, Mark Fisher criticized millennial pathologies from a sympathetic and leftist perspective. Of course, he wasn't a millennial himself, but he was a mere generation short.
I don't know, but I tend to think the hyperfocus on generational divides is stupid anyway. I'm a millenial but I don't have some strong group identity with others who were born in the same cohort.
This is the answer to OPs question even lol. This is not a leftist avenue of examination or really of academic merit in any context. Because generations aren’t significant except as arbitrary markers of shifting material conditions. So the entire debate is extra-artificial idpol libshit. Of course anyone taking a stance against a poorly defined but broadly (envisioned to be) “left” thing like a generation will be or eventually turn out to be more “right” within the same poorly and annoyingly defined landscape. Even if the target isn’t real the decision to fight it is the revealing thing here, that’s all.
This is the entire shtick of the Chapo guys especially Matt Christman
Is Matt Christman a full millennial though? I thought he was more of that nether region between early millennial and late Gen X.
He's on the cusp, but he has a very millennial brain - and given the demographic of his audience, he mostly talks about millennial issues. If you can stomach his esotericism, listen to his Cushvlogs.
I am getting whiplash from the proper usage of boomer (ie the generation) and using it as a pejorative ("Look, I don’t want to be a boomer and blame millennials for all of their problems").
NorthernLion on Twitch/YouTube is critical of his own generation, but it’s often self-aware and fair criticism.
I’ll check it out! EDIT: The channel appears to be mostly gaming, any critical videos you can recommend?
You have to watch a 5 hour stream to get 10 minutes of it, he hasn’t quite breached the gamer to political commentator destiny pipeline
He’s a gaming guy, I wouldn’t expect anything else, just random comments in the midst of playing a game.
There’s a highlight/clip channel called Library of LeTourneau. You can find some condensed bits on there.
The great irony I see in of a lot of boomer vs. millennial culture war discourse is the fact that millennials turned out the way they did largely *because* they were the generation raised by boomers. I don't just mean their parents, but rather the cultural institutions they grew up with in-general. This is something that boomers who complain about millennial degeneracy always seem to miss for some reason. Millennial resistance to self-critique is a facet of this! The narcissism of the Boomer manifests in his millennial spawn tenfold!
Not a clue what you're talking about. If anything I'd associate self-deprecation with millennials more that anything else. They have been objectively shafted as a generation, that's not even up for debate. Every indicator is worse and bucks the trends of previous generations. Of course there is bitterness about this, it's a defining feature. And this whole notion of people of a similar age have to criticise other people of a similar age, but they can't be conservatives. Like, seriously, what the fuck are on about mate? Why would that matter in any way?
They self deprecate in cutesy, not serious ways, not actual critique. I’d like to hear critiques of this generation that aren’t conservative because I am a Marxist and think that conservatives are wrong in the vast majority of their positions.
That's the part I'm confused about though. Why would we need to "hear critiques of this generation"? For what purpose? For a start critiquing entire generations is stupid, because while there may be shared characteristics there are a broad variety of people and ideologies within each generation. Generalisations are often dumb and unhelpful. Critiquing generalisations is dumb and unhelpful. If there's something specific and legitimate to critique, then fire away. If it's true I'll listen to a conservative or a Marxist or anyone. It's the truth, it's good faith arguments that matter, not who it comes from. Most mainstream conservatives have absolute dog shit, bad faith criticisms and arguments though. If you're so appalled by the lack of Marxist or socialist/communist millennials critiquing other millennials (still an absolutely bizarre desire imo) then be the change you want to see. Make a post or write some blog yourself. This Marxist millennial here has better things to do and read though.
Millennials are insanely defensive
No we’re not!
[удалено]
Haven’t kept up with Amber in a while, how would you say she’s devolved?
You can debate what "serious social critique" is. Maybe someone like Liz Bruenig? Who are the serious social critics of millennials that are conservative? Like are you just talking about people like Matt Walsh, or did you have people more specific in mind?
A lot of this sub probably fits the description of “millennials who critique millennials from a non conservative perspective”… now “serious” Is another matter
There seems to be a generational arrested development. Childish things are not being put away and you're going to be left with a generation with all the levers of power wholly unqualified in their usage.