Brien, you are on the money. I read a Brownstone article yesterday by Aaron Kheriaty, who was director of Medical Ethics at Irvine School of Medicine until he was fired during Covid, called “The Latent Fascism of Today’s Anti-Fascists.” It was a tough read even after recently watching twice a 35-part lecture series on the Consequences of…
Brien, you are on the money. I read a Brownstone article yesterday by Aaron Kheriaty, who was director of Medical Ethics at Irvine School of Medicine until he was fired during Covid, called “The Latent Fascism of Today’s Anti-Fascists.” It was a tough read even after recently watching twice a 35-part lecture series on the Consequences of Idea, which delved into the many ideas of philosophers well before Plato through the 20th century. These two paragraphs summed it up for me though.
“In such a society there can be no shared deliberation rooted in our participation in a higher Logos (word, reason, plan, order) that transcends each individual. As happened historically with all forms of fascism, culture — the realm of ideas and shared ideals — is absorbed into politics, and politics becomes total war. From within this framework, one can no longer admit any conception of legitimate authority, in the enriching etymological sense of “to make grow,” where we also derive the word “author.” All authority is instead conflated with power, and power is nothing but brute force.”
“Since persuasion through shared reasoning and deliberation is pointless, lying becomes the norm. Language is not capable of revealing truth, which compels assent without negating our freedom. Instead, words are mere symbols to be manipulated. A fascist does not attempt to persuade his interlocutor, he merely overpowers him — using words when these serve to silence the enemy or deploying other means when words will not do the trick.”
That’s where we are, Shelley, and it happened slowly, then all of a sudden, as such things do. There is a whole new and radical reality that is now America. For so many it is ‘hiding in plain sight’, which we are told by the philosophers of tyranny is the best place to hide such things. Judging by the many who would see nothing, they would appear to be right.
I've heard a rare few conservatives talk about this, that what we are seeing is repeating history. So much of what we see happening happened before the battle we know in history as the Civil War, which turned from a cold war to a hot war. There was election fraud, and one side saying that the election was illegitimate. There was usurpation of power, against the will of the people, and in violation of people's rights. What they've said is that every civil war starts with stuff like this. The point where the war becomes kinetic is not when the civil war starts. It's how it ends. Of course, I hope that we find a way to avoid the hot war, but the tragic--and it must be said, realistic--view of history tells us otherwise. If we avoid it, we could rightly call it a miracle.
Brien, you are on the money. I read a Brownstone article yesterday by Aaron Kheriaty, who was director of Medical Ethics at Irvine School of Medicine until he was fired during Covid, called “The Latent Fascism of Today’s Anti-Fascists.” It was a tough read even after recently watching twice a 35-part lecture series on the Consequences of Idea, which delved into the many ideas of philosophers well before Plato through the 20th century. These two paragraphs summed it up for me though.
“In such a society there can be no shared deliberation rooted in our participation in a higher Logos (word, reason, plan, order) that transcends each individual. As happened historically with all forms of fascism, culture — the realm of ideas and shared ideals — is absorbed into politics, and politics becomes total war. From within this framework, one can no longer admit any conception of legitimate authority, in the enriching etymological sense of “to make grow,” where we also derive the word “author.” All authority is instead conflated with power, and power is nothing but brute force.”
“Since persuasion through shared reasoning and deliberation is pointless, lying becomes the norm. Language is not capable of revealing truth, which compels assent without negating our freedom. Instead, words are mere symbols to be manipulated. A fascist does not attempt to persuade his interlocutor, he merely overpowers him — using words when these serve to silence the enemy or deploying other means when words will not do the trick.”
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-latent-fascism-of-todays-anti-fascists/
That’s where we are, Shelley, and it happened slowly, then all of a sudden, as such things do. There is a whole new and radical reality that is now America. For so many it is ‘hiding in plain sight’, which we are told by the philosophers of tyranny is the best place to hide such things. Judging by the many who would see nothing, they would appear to be right.
Another salient point Brien.
To quote Steve Bannon: See 👀 what you see 👀!
Shelley, it seems that we're at the point of 2 choices.
We either have fair elections or will end up deciding it on the street 🤔 😔 😟!
I've heard a rare few conservatives talk about this, that what we are seeing is repeating history. So much of what we see happening happened before the battle we know in history as the Civil War, which turned from a cold war to a hot war. There was election fraud, and one side saying that the election was illegitimate. There was usurpation of power, against the will of the people, and in violation of people's rights. What they've said is that every civil war starts with stuff like this. The point where the war becomes kinetic is not when the civil war starts. It's how it ends. Of course, I hope that we find a way to avoid the hot war, but the tragic--and it must be said, realistic--view of history tells us otherwise. If we avoid it, we could rightly call it a miracle.