Some people don’t believe me when I try to warn them about the content creator grift. I don’t care, I’m coming for all of them if they start spouting shit like this to their audience. They have a responsibility towards their viewers.
Second time I see him tweet shit like this.
At this point he should just stop pretending he’s any sort of leftist. His mental health will thank him.
archive link so he can’t scrub it off the internet: https://archive.ph/XWZD6 (still loading as of posting but should be ready eventually)
I commented on the thread on hexbear but I’ll say it here for the sake of perhaps starting a conversation, I think linking cognitive capacity to people becoming reactionaries, is itself a reactionary and ableist idea. Has lead/covid/microplastics affected the cognitive capacity of the population? Yes, most likely, but this alone does not turn a population towards reaction. Being “smart” doesnt turn you into a communist, being disabled doesnt turn you into a reactionary.
Mental impairment for physical reasons certainly exists, and there can be little doubt that some (at least) of the unfortunate persons who suffer from it hold absurd views on politics and many other things. But in general, I am not convinced that defects of the physical complex from which arises cognition – which complex we call, without really understanding it, the “brain” – are as common or as all-determining as most persons make out. Such people, having a smattering of what they think is Science, apply it crudely and mechanically, and believe that in reducing everything to a second-hand formula they have realized materialism; when in in their failure to recognize a concept as anything but a withered husk, a conclusion without the living sap of argument or struggle, they merely reproduce in themselves the immediate substantial world of belief. Thus, in a kind of miscarriage of Spirit, they give birth, not again to the living, multifarious world around them, but to a kind of stillborn and distorted image of the same; and their attribution of all opposition to what their stillborn conception of Science considers the most fundamental defect betrays only the poverty of their own conception.
How often have we met persons who, though given every advantage of culture, have yet failed to realize a full and living conception of the world; and conversely, have we not met persons who, though lacking in all the usual advantages toward knowledge, have yet realized in themselves the world as becoming! When the new world is born from the old, and further, its Notion has born fruit in the whole concrete richness of life, its essence is easy to grasp; when the old still exists, externally the same as ever but with the old meaning lost or changing, to grasp the essence is difficult, since it seems, the most real thing, to be unreal, fleeting, and with no genuine relation to substantial life. Who grasps it must do so in struggle, heroic and human, in concrete time; which is to say, such a one must be at the apex of the embodied struggle; and here we find the full essence of what is commonly termed “environment.”
(Apologies for the language. I was trying to crack Hegel last night).
USA is cringe for sure but I cannot imagine looking at what Americans do and thinking that the country is uniquely worse at critical thinking than the rest of world. Sure, their education system and the people coming out of it are abysmal considering its the wealthiest country in the world. But there are tangible reasons for it, like the underfunded public education system. I look at the people around where I live and most of them are not good at critical thinking either. It is not something that is taught in general.
The other sad thing is what made him surface this thought is the rambling of a weird nazi on X, the everything app. That platform is a cesspool of all varieties of fascists who inhale oxygen just so they are able to make atrocious bad faith posts on it. Now Musk even pays them for it. Content creators cannot fathom leaving that website because a big chunk of their self worth and income is tied to their follower count. Don’t use that website that all. Otherwise don’t use it to survey national mentual acuity. Just be normal.
I think this is a logical conclusion if one believes “brainwashing” on mass is a thing for an explanation of the bourgoisie proleteriat; it will lead to a biolgical determinist rationale for resistance to being “unbrainwashed” and then it’s a short hop from that to eugenicism echoing essentially fascist sentiments.
Instead consider a more dialectical materialist take:
https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
Ie narratives as a social license for bigotry along imperialist and settler colonial lines because at some level that individual benefits from those material conditions. The material always come before the idea.
(There’s all sorts of other problems with yugopnik’s take - like folks with learning difficulties who don’t lean right wing, removing the agency of the fascist, using ablism to explain fascism, where these Nietzschean takes of the untermenschen comes from, mechanical vs dialectical materialism etc etc)
Very disappointing. The ReProgram.
Why is he treating it as a mystery? America literally did allow a thought-terminating virus to run rampant. There’s also our deliberately poor education. We have answers to this, Yugo. It’s not some incomprehensible phenomenon.
+ 40 years of cold war propaganda + times of heightened contradictions + living in the heart of the empire itself.
The CW propaganda was wild, someone once told me people in the USSR were “miming” working at the factory line (like the line was empty and they just mimed work) because there was nothing to produce. Like what? How does that even make sense lol. They were older, probably heard this as a kid in school. It was a real generational shock for me hearing this.
Yeah, it’s frustrating hearing this. We need to remember to stay vigilant ourselves. None of us are immune to thought-termination and propaganda.
Don’t drink and tweet, Yugo.
Man people need to go out more often or you’ll eventually talk some dumb shit like this
This but also… I kinda feel the same about people that treat these “influencers” as if they are supposed to be infallible, and then freak out over every instance of imperfection. Has their been a left side “influencer” in history that didn’t say some unhinged shit in their life or have some bad habit or acts? I mean shit, imagine what kind of tweets Marx would have had? He was a great man but he wasn’t a saint. I’ve seen plenty of people on here say we need to not like, worship influencers and treat them as infallible, and yet those same people rant when some influencer shows themselves as having faults. So what is it? Are the supposed to be perfect or aren’t they?
Some people have shit takes. I’m not gonna defend a bad take, but I’m analytical enough to know people aren’t perfect. I sure as fuck am not. So I look at it like this, Yugo and the dudes on that podcast have done more to bring more people into communism, real actual communism, then I have, so I’m not gonna cast no stones. And I’m sure as fuck not calling him a Nazi for having a rage fit over how fucking crazy Americans and chuds in general are. I hear these people every day. If an intelligent and learned communist can hear the things I’ve heard, and not at any point think, even once, “there might be something wrong with these people” , then I’d have to question if that person was real.
Hot take…?: Marx having Twitter would’ve been bad…?
But also Marx had bad takes occasionally anyway. That’s the nature of being a person. So what do you do when someone makes mistakes? You criticize them and you work on it. And I’m certainly going to criticize someone who talks about a “sub strata” of humanity. The op didn’t say “yugo is a nazi” they said “yugo tweets nazi shit.” Which…he did. At the very least it’s extremely ableist.
Also, there’s a difference between “something might be wrong with these people” and “there’s a substrata of humans who can’t think correctly.” In any case, it’s just extremely shit logic, and even more shit logic to go “should I post this to my audience? Hell yeah!”
I think I kinda get where you’re coming from on this. Yeah, nobody has the “correct” take all the time. I would say one of the problems here with the influencer type crowd is how many of them don’t take the gravity of their position seriously; when they see themselves more as “shitposters” than as columnists, more as memelords than propagandists, more as shock jocks than thought leaders.
Part of this goes back to systemic stuff. The western, english-speaking internet (can’t speak for elsewhere) is such that it’s easier to be seen by being shocking, memey, and ridiculous than by writing long, well-thought-out essays. In fact, by some you can viewed as annoyingly academic and wordy just for writing a couple of paragraphs. So not only is there an incentive to reduce your communication to soundbite shock value stuff, algorithms drive that stuff to the forefront and make those people more popular compared to the more plodding, “boring” ones.
These kind of people do have something going for them, which is an understanding of marketing. But I do think they need more serious communists in their corner, with an in-depth understanding of theory (and preferably practice too) who can help shape their marketing into more pointed propaganda. Rather than them posting every “hot take” they have for the views.
Edit: Also, this problem that Conselheiro outlined comes to mind:
This is what substituting a party for a podcast does to a mf.
I’m pretty sure Marx was actively involved in the struggle along with doing heavy observation of its developments. Lenin for sure was, as was Mao. The kind of people that are thought leaders in marxism are people who put it into practice and learned from that practice. “Influencers” can only go so far if they aren’t out there organizing. But doing so also puts them more in the crosshairs and so would give them more reason to be cautious about what they say. It’s insulation that empowers recklessness.
These types of “people are stupid (or any ableist slurs)” talking points always bother me because outside of alienating people by saying shit like that, it’s also incredibly harmful rhetoric that legitimizes eugenics and normalizes genocide against disabled people (well actually people in general, not just disabled people).
I think a lot has already been said about why dehumanizing any group of people is very dangerous, but yeah I agree with you on touching grass. Take some time off the internet and go outside every once in a while. I’m also glad to have not been on twitter for years lol.
I once saw a tiktok leftist saying similar shit (though he had a degree in psychology). I did warn him though in the comments that even if the scientific facts are what they claim to be, we still cant fall or use the same rhetoric as the nazis did. luckily he understood.
I think he was almost doing alright until the last bit.
I do think that people who engage in the mental gymnastics required to maintain a right wing or even liberal ideology are doing damage to their brains.
If you don’t use muscles they atrophy, if you over work them they can become deformed, same goes for different parts of the brain. Its called neuroplasticity. If you don’t practice empathy you become incapable of it, the parts of your brain involved in empathy will atrophy and the space will be taken up by parts of the brain that do other things.
The “sub strata” as he calls them are nothing special just a more extreme example of individuals who have ideologically programed short circuits in their reasoning. We all have brain worms some people just have a way larger infestation.
Kinda like how Yugopnic is showing he has an eugenicist brain worm that is confusing cause and effect.
It almost feels like Yogo should go in SRS at this point
Extremely disappointing take. Comrade Yugo needs to self-crit over this.
We’ve all been wrong and said cringe things. It’s important to acknowledge and correct such behavior whenever it’s pointed out.
Unfortunate take. There are plenty of rich and powerful people who benefit. There is a really shit education system, failing millions. There is an absurd amount of propaganda.
The expulsion of a group, any group, from the category of human beings is extremely dangerous. Below are some passages from Losurdo’s book, War and Revolution. Although I did gather the passages and quickly made this comment, I think it might resonate with some of you.
“At times of acute conflict, we witness a kind of mutual excommunication from civilization (this is the essence of the process of de-specification). The friend/enemy dichotomy tends to coincide with the civilization/ barbarism dichotomy. However, the two forms of de-specification are not equivalent. One of them establishes a politico-moral distance between the self and the enemy, while the other establishes a distance more charged with naturalistic elements, because it identifies the enemy as foreigner and barbarian or, with reference predominantly to revolutionary leaders, as a lunatic, who is likewise alien to a community within which conflict arises not because of internal contradictions, but because of an external pathogenic or ethnic cause. The first type of de-specification refers to a form of conduct which, by definition, is particular and mutable. Going beyond conduct, the second ends up referring to characteristics that tend to assume a naturalistic fixity.”
“The ideology developed to legitimize and celebrate ventures against the barbarians also ends up materializing in the capitalist metropolis. […] In other words, during serious conflicts between members of the civilized community, forms of war traditionally employed against barbarians tend to emerge within it as well.”
But the definition of race/barbarians can be vague. For example,
“Between 1907 and 1915, thirteen US states enacted laws for compulsory sterilization, covering, according to Indiana’s legislation (the first state to move in this direction), ‘habitual delinquents, idiots, imbeciles and rapists’. There were those who proposed extending such legislation to ‘vagabonds’ (for the most part members of an ‘inferior race’).”
However, we on the left usually react to such racialization with moral condemnation.
“We register a paradox. At the very moment when de-specification on a naturalistic basis is indignantly rejected, moral sentiment can result in a different type of de-specification, with the expulsion from the moral (and human) community of a social stratum (in this instance, slave-owners).”
And,
“The most radical representatives of American abolitionism seem to argue in similar fashion. [Condemning] the institution of slavery as a ‘combination of death and hell’, and having branded the US Constitution as a ‘covenant with death and an agreement with hell’. […] Reconstructed via the rejection of racial prejudice, the unity of the human race is once again undermined by moral or politico-moral sentiment or fanaticism.”
Yet,
“In the USA, the ancien régime presented itself in a highly peculiar form. The residues of censitary discrimination were not of much significance. More important was the fact that the aristocracy of class was configured here as an aristocracy of race.”
Finally, there’s the last part of this passage, which I think serves as a prescient warning:
“Tocqueville identified the French and, in particular, the Jacobins as the carriers of ‘a virus of a new and unknown kind’, which allegedly underlay the incessant French revolutionary cycle. Having condemned ressentiment as the motive behind rebellion against the power exercised by the masters and the successful, Nietzsche pointed to the Jews as ‘the people of ressentiment par excellence’. Finally, Hitler prided himself on having finally discovered the source of the disease and the revolutionary infection. It was Jews and Bolsheviks, who were regularly equated, in part on account of the Jewish origin of a significant number of leaders of the Russian revolutionary movement. The process of ethnicization of the revolutionary virus can assume very different forms. But what remains constant is the danger of slippage from the psychopathological paradigm, which refers to mental illness, to the naturalistic paradigm, which refers to the inferior or degenerate ethnicity and race.”
Perhaps the moral condemnation of the West, and since white people have presented themselves as naturally superior for such a long period of time, can at the same time be a rejection of the Western population as part of the “real” human race by those they have oppressed. It sounds like a reversal of white supremacists’ own self-perceived superiority. This strand of thought admits that a certain kind of white people were born without a way out of said group, but judges them negatively and attributes to the group only bad, eternal qualities.
exactly, the contradictions are internal - or in other words, they’re coming from inside the house!
If Mao was able to organize the masses who were living in feudal conditions, westerners have no excuse. The ableist thinking from that tweet is pure cope.
Maos peasants weren’t people propagandized from birth to worship capitalism and be good little nationalists that believe every other nation on earth is a shit hole, and taught that communism is the literal devil incarnate. I’d take the peasant over that any day. You could actually talk to those people without the threat of semi-automatic weapons being pointed at you. It’s easier to start with a nearly blank slate then one that’s had this level of propaganda drilled into their being.
“A bowl is most useful when it is empty” - Lao Tzu
Chinese people also lived under much worse conditions, including a century of humiliation and two Japanese invasions. USians aren’t yet living under deprivations anything like early 20th century Russians, Chinese, Cubans, Koreans, or Vietnamese.
Another good point. People still have things to lose. It takes extremes to get ordinary people to be willing to fight. Not only that. From weapon standpoint it takes more and more people willing to fight, in order to combat the technology superiority against us. Literally the entire US military is designed for this. Fighting against a lesser armed foe.
Appreciate that you didn’t double down on it. I think Americans have no excuse, because people living in conditions far worse than anything Americans can even comprehend came together to build a better society.
But I’m no one to speak. I’ve barely done enough to further socialism in my own country. All I’m doing is talking to people and slowly propagandizing then to build class consciousness. Tiring process, but we play with the cards we’re dealt
What he said here is shit and I think it’s worthy of criticism, but I still think that his work is great and what he’s doing is great. Also, I get it. I get breaking down and just having A Moment about America, especially when your country is on the receiving end of imperialism. He certainly should have vented in private but I do get what prompted him to act this way.
I get it also. I don’t entirely disagree with a good bunch of the US population being rabid beyond repair and having the cognitive capacity of an 8 year old, since I have also been on the internet. As a matter of fact, I think these months are proving that the problem is much wider and much deeper than anyone’s ever said. I don’t think leaning into eugenicist bullshit is necessary or acceptable though.
I agree and honestly I think he’s just angry (like we all are) and he’s just saying this kind of stuff in anger.
