For an entertaining take inspired by the Eco essay, I recommend this recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M6CXhUS-x8&t=1s
I got the gist of that whole thing after two seconds of looking at the image.
Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
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Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#12If curious see also 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413908 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173823
Thank you. Do you just recall these off the top of your head or do you generally check each post that makes it to the front page, either manually or with a script?
I use HN Search manually but support that in a browser extension that I use for HN moderation. For example, I have keyboard shortcuts to open an HN search tab for the URL or title of a selected post, another to restrict the search to threads that got comments, another to convert search results into a list on HN itself, another to copy the title/URL of a selected post to the clipboard, and so on. (One of these years I will find a way to share this software with HN users, since it's kind of an HN power-reader, besides the mod functions.)
That lets me find and scan past threads fairly quickly to find the interesting ones. It's still too manual, though; I need to make more steps towards automation. I'm not sure it can be fully automated because you have to do human interventions to either track down relevant past threads or exclude boring ones. The endgame is probably not to fully automate these lists but to have software generate a starter version and then give the community ways to edit it.
The only place that recalling things off the top of my head (or somewhere in the poorly-lit middle of it) plays a role is that often I vaguely remember that there existed a discussion about $X in past years and then tweak the searches till I find it.
Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#13Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#14For an entertaining take inspired by the Eco essay, I recommend this recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M6CXhUS-x8&t=1s
I got the gist of that whole thing after two seconds of looking at the image.
I haven't watched the video, but just in case you weren't aware, Beau of the Fifth Column's whole deal is that he subverts the themes associated with his image.
Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#15Well met > Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4,1938, are worth recalling:I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move for-ward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot ofour citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land. A very interesting quote that should be taken seriously today. Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on bo…
> Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on both sides of the aisle
One side believes that government can be, and should be, improved by collective effort.
The other side believes government cannot be improved because government itself is per se bad.
There is zero equivalence between the two.
Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#16Well met > Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4,1938, are worth recalling:I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move for-ward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot ofour citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land. A very interesting quote that should be taken seriously today. Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on bo…
> Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on both sides of the aisle Maybe the current instance of the government. But as for the idea of government in general, the opinions are sharply different across the aisle.
The less effective the status quo is, the more willing people are to try radical approaches, be it technology, politics, dieting, etc.
In my own small world of political banter, the number of people who have floated, or not disagreed with the concept of balkanizing the U.S.A is astounding. When I grew up, America was the greatest country in the world, and now my friends say - well we tried. Maybe balkanization would be easier since nobody can seem to agree on a damn thing, not even the budget!
The farther apart the two sides of the political sphere, the less the work together to actually produce tangible results for the average American, the less happy and healthy the average American - the more likely we as Americans are to support a scrapping of it all and supporting Communism, Anarchism, Direct Democracy, Fascism, Theocracy, or other ideologies, and not Republicanism (that is, being a republic).
Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#17Well met > Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4,1938, are worth recalling:I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move for-ward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot ofour citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land. A very interesting quote that should be taken seriously today. Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on bo…
> Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on both sides of the aisle Maybe the current instance of the government. But as for the idea of government in general, the opinions are sharply different across the aisle.
No, I think both sides have an idea of the perfect government. It's just that the ideas differ radically (in fact, they are mutually incompatible). So we get the current situation, where neither side is satisfied with what they have. And I fear the degree to which both sides think they have to destroy the other side in order to get what they want...
Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#18Well met > Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4,1938, are worth recalling:I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move for-ward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot ofour citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land. A very interesting quote that should be taken seriously today. Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on bo…
> Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on both sides of the aisle One side believes that government can be, and should be, improved by collective effort. The other side believes government cannot be improved because government itself is per se bad. There is zero equivalence between the two.
Exactly. So many people want to seem enlightened and "above the fray" and blaming "both sides" is an easy way to sound smart and perceptive.
Only one side attacks democracy and government as concepts.
Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#19I returned to this essay when I saw the photo of the Jake Angeli in the Capitol - a Q-supporter wearing an Indian buffalo mask and a tattoo of Odin, storming the capitol alongside evangelical Christians. Relevant quote:
This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, “the combination of different forms of belief or practice”; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and whenever they seem to say different or incompatible things it is only because all are alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth has been already spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
[...]
If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge—that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.
Re: Umberto Eco: Ur-Fascism (1995) [pdf]
#20Well met > Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4,1938, are worth recalling:I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move for-ward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot ofour citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land. A very interesting quote that should be taken seriously today. Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on bo…
> Many Americans view our federal government poorly, on both sides of the aisle One side believes that government can be, and should be, improved by collective effort. The other side believes government cannot be improved because government itself is per se bad. There is zero equivalence between the two.
> The other side believes government cannot be improved because government itself is per se bad.
I agree - it's clear that the social democrats and other leftists would clearly like to remove government entirely and achieve a stateless society.
Or did you mean the right-wing libertarian types who want to have no government so they can own nukes?
These analogies are just silly and not really the point - the goals don't really matter to the point. The point is that when there is less perceived legitimacy of government, people are more willing to look for other options.