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Comment by soufron | Hacker News Reader

Behind the acidity of the text, it's not really agressive.

He's adopting a radically critical posture that is a bit missing from the Occidental perspective.

Radical critics do exist in the Occident.

But they don't focus on the same issues, and especially not on the moral issues.

They tend to focus on the systemic organization of the occidental society, explaining how systemic changes could change its course for the better.

In a way, he's insisting on the individual and he's striking some right chords.

But at the same time, as many critics of the occident, he refuses to ask himself for the reasons of its success...

It's one think to criticize it and explain what does not work.

But then, why does it work as a whole?

What's the catch?

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In hindsight, his least-extendable point is about Christianity. Today, it’s the political right that embraces materialism (he assumes left) and the left that understands the biblical sacrifice.

44 Presidents before Trump grew up in our system and we have some idea what a religious experience could do to any of them. We have no idea how Trump would react to religion.

The left has a major movement to sacrifice their power in our flawed system in order to purge candidates who are uncertain on Palestine.

True.

Actually, one thing he does not get - but it's difficult to criticize him on this, because his questions are not wrong... they feel... foreign in a way, so one thing is that the changes he's calling for... they take time ! A lot of time !

It's almost as if this text is about political epistemology in a way.

At least, that's how I relate to it.

Actually, I think I would have loved an exchange between him and Feyerabend.

> Today, it’s the political right that embraces materialism (he assumes left) and the left that understands the biblical sacrifice.

I agree with you about today's right, but disagree strongly about the left. The left is, if anything, even more materialistic than the right. The belief that providing enough material goods will fix all problems is behind the left's disastrous push to have governments provide everything to everyone: welfare, health care, open borders, etc.

I’m sure I’ll give away my age on this.

Boomers were raised by the first consumer generation in America: the theory of consumerism to escape a permanent Great Depression. It went unquestioned that the value proposition for physical possessions might be so high that it verges on patriotic. Boomers are by far the biggest spenders.

But the important young people today are overseas. This is a statement about numbers and it’s a statement about young people in USA prioritizing sustainability. The value proposition to young Americans is reasonable for health care and nutrition/food stamps, and perhaps unreasonable for cable TV and corporate bailouts.

The original Green New Deal, the 2006 package of single-payer health care, job guarantees, free college paid by a carbon tax; that’s hard for me to call materialistic. Huge spending to offset the next generation’s collapsing consumerism.

> The original Green New Deal, the 2006 package of single-payer health care, job guarantees, free college paid by a carbon tax; that’s hard for me to call materialistic.

Sure it's materialistic. By "health care" is meant care of one's physical health; it doesn't provide you with friendship or community. (Indeed, the left has been systematically destroying all private sources of friendship and community, leaving only government work and leftist political activism as "approved" ways to get your social needs met.) Jobs are so you can buy stuff. College is so you can get a higher paying job so you can buy more stuff. To the extent this is to "offset collapsing consumerism", it's by giving people ways to continue consuming.

If materialism is increasing in Western society, then it’s because people increasingly value affluence as a measure of social standing. I think we agree on that. I think what you’re saying is: conspicuously paying more money for health insurance, or paying for more people, is a signal about affluence. What I’m saying is: only the rich don’t need health insurance. Only the rich don’t need college. Paying for those with a carbon tax reinforces Wikipedia’s definition (that environmentalism is directly opposed to materialism).

> think what you’re saying is: conspicuously paying more money for health insurance, or paying for more people, is a signal about affluence.

No, I'm saying no such thing. I'm saying that having the government provide health insurance, and welfare, food stamps, college, etc., etc., all the things leftists say governments should provide, is only providing material benefits. You were arguing that these leftist policies are evidence that leftism is not materialistic; I was refuting that argument. It has nothing to do with affluence; even if leftists' wildest dreams came true and all the rich people's wealth was redistributed to the poor, so everyone had an equal amount of wealth, all that would still only be providing material benefits.

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