Comment by return0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by return0 | Hacker News Reader

> it has become much easier to build intellectual conversations outside of the overton window of the universities.

I don't believe that is true. In fact the problem with the current rhetoric is that academia, (that is, the part of academia that can publish (thus the part that passes the review of its peers)) pushed its fringe identity politics rhetoric to the mainstream media, instead of the actual economic issues that cause the global Trumpism[1]. It's not a new phenomenon - academia always had control of the media rhetoric.

On the other side, conspiracies have always existed. From my european perspective, it actually amazes me how everyone is surprised and looking to russian conspiracies for explanations, when we have had this propaganda phenomena for a very long time under the cold war from both sides (and i doubt they caused a huge swing in democracies). Social media doesn't really make such a huge difference, because social networks have always existed, just not online, and just less transparent to everyone. I think Occam's razor would suggest it's much easier to explain your election results on economic terms (again, [1]) than doing a witch hunt.

1. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/18/mark_blyth...

The "fringe identity politics" of academia and "global Trumpism" are just to aspects of the same phenomena: individuals only being able to react to their conditions in reference to simulacra.

What comprises the modern left spends its time (fruitlessly) trying to escape the conditions of Late Capitalist oppression by trying to reform language and symbols, as if the amoral profusion of signs inherent to our era can somehow be cowed into a uniform, virtuous narrative. These supra-simulations of identity immediately collapse beneath their demands of consistency of performance, both from their actors and their audience. The instability of economic and social conditions, as well as the myriad seductions of manufactured identity found in consumerism and technology, erode them as soon as they are constructed.

Meanwhile, the modern right (more properly understood as the postmodern right)understands and embraces the semiotic chaos of our contemporary condition, gleefully pirouetting from whatever simulation of politics, truth, and identity serves their immediate purposes. White supremacy, Leninism, religious conservatism, Objectivism, FDR New Dealism, Libertarianism. These are all just just roles which the postmodern right can occupy or discard at will, mirroring the social and psychological conditions of their constituency. The promise is stability, but not in the form of consistent identity. It's a stability of occult freedom, where whatever is can be transmuted into whatever is necessary.

> individuals only being able to react to their conditions in reference to simulacra.

I don't think so. They react to their economic condition.

Yes, the tension is mainly economic. Without a vision of opportunity everyone operates from a zero-sum game perspective. Identity politics becomes a way of marshalling power to fight over fixed resources.

Blyth has the best analysis of the changes the West is undergoing. I recommend the video you linked to everybody.

I agree, except that the fixed resource is votes, not economic resources (which everyone here knows are not fixed in any practical sense).

Democracy is a vote market, and strong identities are the strongest persuasive tool available for acquiring votes. Strong identities we know of are skin color, religion, and universalist ideologies (think communism).

Once a particular identity, or combination of compatible identities becomes large enough to have a chance at becoming a winning coalition, the logic of the democracy market almost guarantees it will be deployed for that purpose. Even in the absence of underlying economic factors.

TLDR; democracy has a lot of very scary failure modes, and the US has been lucky to avoid them because until very recently, there haven't been strong competing identities, so people have been free to argue over tax rates.

I agree, except that the fixed resource is votes, not economic resources (which everyone here knows are not fixed in any practical sense).

But doesn't this Presidential election at least suggest that enough people got unhappy about the very "fixed" (more like steadily declining) economic "resource" known as the working class job to swing the election to Trump?

All the raw statistics, from labor force participation to suicide rate changes, suggest your point isn't correct, except in a theoretical sense, or "any practical sense" except in the very long term.

The full video, for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWMmBG3Z4DI

also his "global trumpism" presentation has the argument laid out in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd2d4_LcEig&

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