The Leftist Ideological Ather and Lay Leftists ⭐

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The way the non-left argues against leftists is always by posing as “pragmatists”. Laughing off the latter’s ideas as naive/idealistic, or “too radical”.

What this does is concede the moral argument to the left. “Yes, ideally we should do as you say, but I the old cynic who has seen the world, unfortunately do not see how this is possible.” Rather than casting the leftist as the villain, it casts them as the hero overcoming unsurmountable obstacles.

(Compare this to e.g. the following extremely irritating leftist quote arguing against capitalism/technological progress: “We always ask if we can, never if we should”. Note that the objection is to the should, not the can! This puts the obligation on the capitalists to defend their tech — and because moral arguments are in the realm of the left, they have to do this by appealing to left-wing premises, e.g. “our technology will benefit minorities!” thereby reinforcing those leftist premises.)

I call this “Lay Leftism”: as a result of total leftist ideological/cultural dominance, normies function not as centrist or neutral, but as “lay-leftists”, who implicitly assume leftism as a high ideal. This is also why you see the following phenomenon:

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Describing Classical India as a “Buddhist society” is perhaps like describing modern America as a “leftist society”.

Sure, everyone is woke, hates capitalism … but the system is still largely a capitalist machine.

While centrists or “liberals” are chiefly guilty of this, RWs also do not really have the ideological coherence and conviction to really fight on these fundamental principles. Without an Ādi Śankara to challenge the ideological aether head-on and give the Lay-Buddhists/Lay-leftists an alternative view, society will continue to move in the direction of increasing Buddhism/Leftism, constrained only by pragmatic limitations.

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The problem with the “socialism has never been achieved in practice” meme is:

1. RealSocialism™ would be much worse than the authoritarian socialism/state capitalism of real-world communist states. Resources being managed by the state is still better than resources being “public property”—whether in the sense of “libertarian socialism” where everything is in infinite shortage due to free-rider problems, or “democratic socialism” where every economic transaction needs a fucking election for some reason.
2. It presents socialism as some kind of ideal that, alas, pragmatic limitations prevent us from achieving. This turns people into what I call “Lay Leftists” (in analogy to the Lay Buddhists of antiquity—who participated in normal urban life but viewed becoming a Buddhist monk as an ideal they simply could not live up to).
3. It gives you no weapon against all of the steps en-route to socialism. After all how can “socialism has never been achieved” be an argument against socialized healthcare or pensions? Those have been achieved … they’re just bad.

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https://x.com/karthik2k2/status/1942875121078669334

Suppose your kid grows up as both academically mediocre and aberrant… He/She wants to do some degree on gender studies or social dynamics among African green monkeys.

How much money would you need to say “Cool..you do you. You don’t have to work a single day in your life” ?

Very telling question.

You wouldn’t hear a leftist asking “How much money would you need to let your children become a sangh pracharak”

The leftist HATES the sangh pracharak and sees them as enemy, the RW MOCKS the gender studies major and sees them as a waste of money/time.