Tankie Educates KFLogan

so okay before we start we we're taught

we've been

exchanging hostility but

i'll be civil if you be civil what do

you think

dude cool man okay okay good good i'm

glad we can agree about that

okay so

i saw some of your reactions to

socialism done

to my debate was awesome done left and

to wash

and in my view you weren't being quite

that fair

to me oh okay um

and what why do you think i was being

unfair

let me think well for example this whole

thing about definitions right

wrong you pointed out that just because

definitions

are malleable and are subject to change

doesn't mean they're not useful at all

but

the issue with bread tube and wash is

that it's not simply that they use

definitions for the purpose of

simplifying concepts i i'm fine with

that i

i like simplifying concepts obviously

you don't want to have to always use

uh multiple paragraphs to sum up a

concept you you know

maybe it's useful to have a string of

words but the issue is that they go

about

confusing the manner of expression we

give

to um to concepts

and to ideas and to phenomena in reality

with being the actual material premise

of those phenomena in the first place

for example

the thing about dictionaries when i was

saying about who was writing the words

in the first place

i know that people writing the

dictionaries are just doing their best

the best they can to try and sum up what

they think the meaning of a word is

but that doesn't mean the meaning of a

word is premised

by that best attempt and vosh and

redtube seem to be under the impression

that the meaning of words is actually

premised by the definitions people give

to them instead of the definitions just

being

the best attempt people give to sum up

that meaning i think meaning is deeper

than

superficial definition okay go ahead

okay yeah

the problem i had with uh your what i

saw as obfuscation

let's say of um of this was that you

were saying

he he didn't say what is the definition

of fascism he said how do you define

fascism so he was asking you

for your uh version of fascism and so

you could argue from that point and you

you then went off on a rant about all of

this other stuff but he wasn't asking

you about

the etymology of words or anything like

that he was asking you what you felt

fascism was and you couldn't answer and

i thought that was

a tad dishonest okay okay well um

to be fair though i did clarify why i

don't want i didn't want to give wash

even whether it's my definition or it's

the

definition i think is besides the point

i don't want to construct

something that i consider will premise

in every context in every situation

what fascism is and i that's why i

wanted to get that clear to wash first

and then i said well if you want me to

simplify what i think fascism is

i'd be more than happy to give my best

attempt to try and do that

but i don't have um uh like i don't have

some

handy book doctrine doctrine you know

that i

that i apply to superimpose upon reality

like i don't first

have a definition of fascism and then

superimpose that definition

upon reality i like to engage in

concrete analysis

in the historical phenomena of fascism

and then maybe

through such a materialistic and

concrete analysis

you can maybe discover how the essence

of something like that might

be reproduced in a contemporary context

but

my issue with bread tube and again i

like to think of things in concrete

terms like

what are they actually doing with this

whole definition of fascism stuff

i think they're engaging in a type of

opportunism where

they're applying this word fascism to

things that

aren't in my view essentially uh

fascist okay but in order to make the

uh call that these things aren't fascist

you must have at least some broad

definition of what you believe fascism

to be

which is what vosh was basically asking

you to do

no real no serious person would look at

that situation and think that you were

giving a definitive

absolute this is what fascism always is

and always is not

that's not what anyone was asking you

for and the fact that you couldn't give

that i thought was very very funny

but you know um that's how they treat it

they do treat it as a definitive

absolute

type of thing now a definition if you

want to think about

that word a definition of course i have

a definition

of what fascism is of course fascism

makes an impression upon me

in a way that makes it intelligible so

it is definite definitely

but that type of definition cannot be

reduced

to let's say the 14 points of inverto

echo

or some other kind of axiom or some kind

of other

premise that's what i wanted to say when

we talk about fascism we must engage in

a concrete analysis

um exhaustively and analyzing and

understanding

not only the historical context but the

situation

uh in the countries within which fascism

gained prominence

and that's something i'd love to go over

you know in a way that won't take an

hour

or two hours or something in a

simplistic way i just take issue with

this idea that first we have a

let me put it this way right the meaning

we

attribute to fascism isn't

it comes first the definition is just

our best attempt to summarize what that

meaning is

yeah okay but the the thing is

you are happy to ascribe the term bread

tube to a quite

wide array of different people online

even though that's a far

less well understood and well studied

phenomena than fascism

i disagree uh well i think

that bread tube is a phenomena and they

are they do share similar

characteristics in terms of

the philosophical premises if you will

uh that they have i'm not i'm not i'm

not denying that my point is

that you're far easier adding that

label to somebody whether they describe

it themselves or not

whereas you're far more tentative about

fascism

it seems odd maybe considering that you

claim to be

anti-fascism well there's a reason for

that the first one is that fascism is a

historical phenomena which tends to be

attributed to phenomena that are not in

the

by no means in the contemporary sense

identified

with fascism without controversy but i

think everyone can agree that there is

right now a phenomena called bread tube

and which the bred two people themselves

don't really have a problem

acknowledging it's a new it's it's like

um fascism is something from the 20s and

30s that is being superimposed upon

new phenomena which i don't really think

it's useful to call

fascist the the idea of bread tube

just corresponds to a new youtube

phenomena

um yeah that's what it responds to it's

not like we're just dragging something

from the past and superimposing it upon

something new

oh i i find that interesting considering

you've called yourself a maoist and

peasants aren't really a thing anymore

so that doesn't really make sense

no it's actually interesting um no it's

interesting

first regarding the thing about maoism

when we call ourselves maoists

and stalinists we are acknowledging and

owning up

to this history first and foremost now

it doesn't mean

that in 2021 the same conditions that

corresponded to stalinism maoism

or even lenin's time and marx's time

are the same it's just saying that we

seek to reproduce in essence despite the

differing conditions

the achievement and discovery of stalin

for his time and mao

for his time it doesn't mean we're

dogmatically you know

applying the conditions that

corresponded to the meaning of those

words to our times

the second thing is that it's

interesting to bring that up because i

disagree

conceptually if i don't fault you for

not doing research on us or anything

like that but

we at infrared um we don't actually

agree that

the peasantry has disappeared we view

actually

it's one of our conceptual innovations

to marxism

that given the lessons of 20th century

communism

um given the achievement of lenin the

unity of the workers and peasants we

don't consider the peasantry to be

a vestigial or transient formations

there's something about the peasantry

that endures something about this which

endures and we

we use thinkers like heidegger to give

better expression and understanding of

this

now it sounds like everyone dismisses

what i say is word salad please let me

simplify what i'm saying okay

no no i'm not yet i wouldn't say that

that through your audience

oh yeah absolutely yeah and there's

there's there are points during the

debates i've seen where you

definitely veer into that kind of

territory but on this occasion i don't

think you are

but what i will say is i think you're

trying to redefine

the current concrete circumstances to

get around the fact that even if you're

a communist you can't realistically be a

maoist in the 21st century because the

conditions are so different

i just want to clarify where i'm coming

from with this peasantry thing because i

know it sounds a little bit

outlandish so to me um a peasantry uh

there has always been some kind of are

you still there

yeah sorry i was just closing the door

okay okay there has always been

a con even in marx's time uh

let me try to sum this up in the best

and easiest ways i can because it's a

lot i'm going to really sum it up okay

the english industrial revolution

corresponded

to almost purely urbanized

modern classes the proletariat and the

bourgeoisie

marx looked at what was happening in

england and obviously understood that

this was the future

this was the future for the world but

during marx's time

there is a delay right what was

happening in england

still hadn't this is why marxists use

this language of lesser developed

more developed and so on and so on um

to me this delay isn't accidental

the reason is because um

the pro the urbanized classes the

proletariat and the bourgeoisie

always necessarily correspond to some

kind of

uh subaltern maybe that's a buzzword

hinterland some kind of periphery maybe

that's a more familiar word some type of

periphery which is necessarily

always lesser developed put in temporal

terms

to me things like the peasantry and then

marx was getting to this

in capital volume 3 with the landed with

this new

significance of landed property in

relation to capital

um to me the peasantry

represents uh this the material

foundation of a polity

uh in popular terms the popular

material foundation of a polity which

means how

in what way do people reproduce their

existence economically

as the very foundation of the polity

within which

they are apart and this sounds crazy but

put in simple terms

you can think of how the rule of

napoleon corresponds to small holding

french peasants

you know what marxist called bonapartism

then you can think in terms of the

we'll just think of the word middle

class actually this is a really

simplistic way to put it

we it's very well known in the political

science and all this kind of stuff that

a stable middle class

is necessary for liberal democracy and

so on and so on

and in the 20th century this middle

class

in the united states had a small

head of family white picket fences a car

and a house

and then you can see this expressed in

other countries some type of class

right which is not lesser developed in

time than the english

19th century uh proletariat but which is

nonetheless

reach is reproducing characteristics

that were

previously associated only with the

peasantry some type of

independent what we like to call

independent ground of living being

now this isn't necessarily independent

property

in the liberal sense of sovereign

ownership of property

but it is this independent ground of

living being

that is not necessarily the same as the

proletariat but at the same time is not

lesser developed than the politics so

for us proletarianization which

separates people from their

living being and forces them to sell

their only property which is their own

labor

this is something this is something

which is

always happening uh across history

in addition to the fact of uh some type

of

uh what's what's a good word to call

this re-parcelization of landed property

whether in abstract terms some type of

return to living being

and some type of proletarianization is a

kind of cyclical

process this is how we've understood

history in general it also explains

why is it that in the united states and

europe

something like a middle class re-emerged

why is it that uh you know

why is it that the the populism that

we're experiencing today have nothing to

do

that marxist simply aren't able to

explain them although mao is kind of can

you know speaking of maoism like kind of

wrong

like but we you have the same phenomena

political phenomena of a contradiction

between the hinterlands

and urban cores

none of this has anything to do with the

fact that these people are still not

peasants

what's the point okay clarify what you

mean by that

well right okay um certainly in the

western world let's say

and actually throughout much of the

world um

what what it means to be proletarian

hasn't fundamentally changed in the

sense that

you still have to sell your life of

course but what we typically think of as

the difference between peasants

and uh proletariat the when you go about

the

land holdings there are there aren't

really a layer of

of peasants around for which you could

have

the peasant vanguard of a revolution

which is the maoist concept right

i certainly agree that agrarian small

property

uh ownership more more or less is no

longer than

defined as a significant portion of the

population so in that sense you're

completely correct

but i just don't consider what the

essence of the peasantry was

especially as it was relevant to maoism

uh to be reducible to those

circumstances i think the peasantry

foreign of course they are

i just think i think there's something

about the peasantry

that has uh that has endured and maoism

allows us to distill what the essence of

that is away from its

uh specific instantiation and agrarian

bonds

okay um i i don't think we're going to

agree on that point um but it's sort of

besides the

uh we may not agree with it that's

completely fine but does it make a

little at least a little bit of

sense is there a little bit of a concern

well it makes it makes sense but it just

seems like you're kind of

um trying to redefine

the concrete realities of the world to

suit a pre-existing answer

which doesn't seem like the kind of

scientific socialism that marxism

uh for us at the infrared collective we

view it in the opposite sense

we saw that the way marxists were

looking at the world was precisely

trying to

re um superimpose old definitions upon

the world in order to realize some

ideological

consistency in some position for example

this idea that everyone is simply

the working class everyone is simply the

proletariat

actually i didn't begin as a maoist

believe it or not

i began as some kind of you know smug

intellectual if you will right i thought

maoism was so stupid

we only became interested in maoism

because it was so

useful in actually understanding what

was going on in the west

with this so-called new populism things

like the yellow vest why is it that

marxists were failing to understand

and i'm not trying to say i want to larp

some maoist revolution in america and

have a protracted people's war

i'm not i'm not coming from that

perspective i'm speaking in a very

uh well you live in the united kingdom

right

i am a terrible anglo-saxon yes to me

maoism a little bit of maoism not only

there's maybe limitations to maoism

uh as their ultra all things but a

little bit of maoism maybe can help

understand to me from

my understanding of the of how things

went down

why what what was corbin's weakness why

did corbyn

fail to acquire the support of those

british working classes who i consider

more like a peasantry

living in the hinterlands outside of the

metropolitan

centers who actually for the first time

is you can correct me if i'm wrong

a lot of them for the first time in

history voted conservative

so yeah this types of paradoxes to me

maoism is of great use in being able to

clarify okay so what

what what would be the maoist answer to

that and what's the maorist analysis of

that

well uh to me that

i think the maoist view the contribution

to the dialectic materials dialectic is

this notion of primary

and secondary contradictions um

you can recognize a primary

contradiction

as m the traditional marxist one between

the proletariat and the bourgeoisie

but as mao said there's also secondary

contradictions there's contradictions

for example between um

a nation uh and some imperial

like japan some imperialistic uh force

right um in japan there's a proletariat

in the bourgeoisie too

and in china there's also some type of

proletariat in bourgeoisie maybe

but these two contradictions

are uh they're both addressed by the

maoist dialectic

the primary contradiction is between the

problem i might be getting the primary

and secondary order of things wrong

the primary contradiction is between the

proletariat and the bourgeoisie

and there's also this secondary

contradiction going on so

you can only speak of the proletarian

position doesn't just mean

being on the side of the factory

proletariat but

being on the side of the factory

proletariat

as it is being reproduced as it is being

given expression

from the uh the forces engaging in some

type of national

liberation and actually this is

imperfect i don't know if you watch the

destiny debate but i tried to illustrate

this in the case of lenin

lenin didn't look at the cities and say

here's the proletariat and here's the

bourgeoisie

he looked at the russian countryside and

he said these fundamental class

divisions are being reproduced

in a new way but despite that almost all

of the peasants in a sense

can be united by the fact of their

antagonism toward

the cities almost as a whole so you have

two you have this kind of

multi-dimensional

contradiction secondary and primary

uh and in the case of the united kingdom

i think

when you're dealing with this type of

phenomena you have to not only look at

the contradiction between

the proletariat the most marginal

whatever and uh

the liberal bourgeoisie which i think

the corbin momentum and stuff

they were focusing too much on uh the

city

same thing with bernie they were

focusing too much on this you also have

to bear in mind the contradiction

between hinterland

and hinterland the national hinterland

and the urban center the metropolitan

urban center

so this is what i mean by primary and

secondary contradictions

oh okay but i mean you mentioned there

the factory proletariat

that doesn't apply because we don't

really have that very much post

post-industrial now yeah i don't mean to

interrupt you but i just want to clarify

it

by factory proletariat i just mean like

the most

urban urbanized possible proletariat in

a given time the military that

corresponds

to the most recent innovation of modern

industries so i suppose in today's day

and age

this would be more like people in the

gig economy or some something like that

along those lines i don't necessarily

mean that

yeah um but also the people you're

referring to

in the um what's called the red wall

area the uh working class who'd voted

for the conservative party

they were largely yeah those they

largely are urban

i know yeah yeah it's the same in the

united states actually uh

here in michigan uh they are also well

but you said

you said that they focused too much on

the so well

that's that's the interesting thing is

that they are urban from the 20th

century's

urbanization the 20th century's

urbanization today from a sociological

perspective despite being

urbanized you know being postmodern you

know you know what i

just i don't want to do word salad so i

want to clarify all these buzzwords i'm

throwing in

by postmodern i mean modernization and

urbanization are kind of

synonymous right that they're kind of

like the same thing

from the perspective of uh modernity

of course yes the modernization happened

the no people are no longer just farming

but even after post-modernity the

peasant repre and this is why

they're urban but their urban

infrastructure for example

is uh is archaic is our cake much in

a similar way as the form of relations

in the countryside were also

archaic i hope this is making sense i

just want this to be

as simple i'm not i i'm not sure any of

this is making sense and i don't mean to

be rude there but i think you're

out of your depth on this one please

elaborate i want to do the best i can to

make

well i the reason i even asked you about

this because i don't think a maoist

perspective on modern britain is

applicable in any real in any sense

i don't think here but that's not to say

that marxism doesn't have some role to

play and that obviously maoism is a type

of marxism

but i think maui's is an adaption of

marxism that's

essentially obsolete certainly in the

western world i can't speak to modern

uh southeast asia for instance but

certainly the western world

it doesn't work in any way okay uh

please uh

elaborate um why do you think well well

i

because again we've still been through i

suppose but the peasantry doesn't exist

marxism marxism needs to be updated in

some respects just on the basis that

the uh urban proletariat are not

a factory-based people anymore that

isn't a thing

um but you're just kind of repeating the

thing you said before yeah

i also said something so what do you

think is so inadequate about

how i've qualified why i think uh the

contrary is the case

well you've given quite broad

contradictions between

geographic areas which don't suit the

britain which is fine because

you're looking up from here so i'm not

expecting you to necessarily know all of

that

but also it's it seems to me much more

concrete analysis would have to do with

things like

um the media's portrayal of people like

jeremy corbyn versus

conservatism rather than anything else

also de-industrialization

and the fact that some on the left

haven't necessarily

grasped that and found a way of

adapting not even marxian but

social democratic even because i mean

the basic point is

uh corbin was a social democrat um

they've not gained a way of being able

to um connect with that group of people

and i don't think that any

uh secondary contradiction necessarily

comes into it in any way okay

uh three things uh i just wanted to

clarify uh the first thing was about

um the first i forgot the first thing

the second thing was about the media

it was about the portrayal of the jeremy

corbyn by the media

i don't necessarily i think that's a

given though he's a he's an outsider

he's an anti-establishment candidate so

that's not from the very outset that's

not going to be fair

i mean so i don't necessarily think

that's a sufficient excuse

um it's interesting that you mentioned

what is the do you remember the first

thing you said i just forgot what was

the first thing you said

uh the geographic this difference oh

okay yes yes

thank you for reminding us here in here

in the united states

we have a similar sociological

distinction that

and i can't name them off the top of my

head but uh writers within the uk were

also describing

you have and this is you're going to be

going into your third point

de-industrialized

hinterland areas that are outside of the

periphery

of these urban centers people who used

to work in factories in heavy industry

of some kind

losing their jobs uh their jobs

or their jobs were already shipped

overseas

i'm just trying to draw a comparison

from a sociological perspective and i

don't necessarily think this is

outrageous the french yellow vest was

the same thing and you had media

headlines saying that

the yellow vests were macrons now if

you're not familiar with the vendi i'm

sure you are because you're very well

read

if the audience isn't familiar with the

what the vendi was it was

um the stage in the french revolution

where basically

uh the republican army was suppressing a

peasant revolt

in the region of nd so the media was

understanding how the yellow vests were

a type of

similar to a peasantry they're

peripheral they're on the margins

they're away from the urban centers

which are the power sources of the

polity that exercises dominion over them

i think the comparison is uh is more

than uh

more than justified i think that in the

in the uk

a similar a similar type of

contradiction is is there

it as it is in the united states and is

in france you have urban

uh centers and you have some type of

periphery with

of which the establishment and the elite

is out of touch with

and this is a source of uh populism so

to me this is uh

i'm i'm just struggling to understand

why this uh distinction is contradiction

is

well first firstly i would i would point

out that the

uh much like in america the populism

isn't really populism

because it is being run by the

establishment in the same way that

donald trump was a

in theory billionaire who gave massive

tax cuts to rich people and continued

doing the same basic uh imperialist

bullshit around the world

um look at the many ways you tried to

overthrow venezuela and ecuador and

various other places

boris johnson is precisely that as well

he's

a rich guy also born in new york i run a

client

right yeah exactly yeah this is the

thing yeah

yeah so it's not that it's not the the

establishment are out of touch with the

public the establishment have perfectly

honed the public for bullshit

you know um it's in i in a sense i agree

with you

you do have this phenomena of elites

which seems like they're pretending to

be

among the people but they're actually

not they're part of the

the big club as george carlin put it in

the case of

trump it's a little bit more complicated

he might be a billionaire he might be an

elite

but as far as the political

establishment is concerned which is here

what's relevant

um he he was an outsider and even among

the

establishment in general from what i

know trump was considered a clown he was

uh

so the theory goes that people like

trump and maybe boris johnson and tucker

carlson

were uh were people who were bitter

about being kicked out of the

establishment and once they were kicked

out of this big club

um they for accidental happenstance

reasons

gave expression to a more fundamental

popular discontent

with the establishment it doesn't

surprise me that

i can't speak for boris johnson so i'm

going to put that on the back burner for

now

but it doesn't really surprise me that

wealthy people like tucker carlson

and donald trump are the first ones that

are able to give

expression to anti-establishment

sentiment just because of their own

particular

having been slighted by the

establishment and the reason is because

having money having money

[Music]

being a popular celebrity or whatever it

is that comes with two advantages

uh one is that people attribute you with

some kind of power

uh some kind of power i mean even if

outside of the establishment some kind

of minimum of power you're not just

building it from scratch and two a very

pragmatic simple

common sense reason you you have the

resources

to be independent not have to rely on

the establishment to support yourself

institutions

and be able to finance some kind of

some kind of uh campaign or position

so that doesn't necessarily surprise me

too much but i think

even if they were just pretending and

they still were in the big club with all

the elites and it was all a con

i don't think that makes the

anti-establishment sentiment they were

giving

expression to however dishonestly or

disingenuously

any less real i think there is an

objective anti-establishment sentiment

which is expressed in the fact that in

both

in 2015 corbyn and bernie were united by

one fact

they were vaguely associated with the

right-wing populism there was a

phenomena of populism in general and so

both of them were by the media and by

the common sense in general by voters

themselves maybe swinging at least in

bernie's case maybe not the uk

you had people inter interchanging

between bernie and trump so there was a

vague association between them both

despite their policies and all that

being completely different

different from a uh materialist

perspective structural perspective

whatever you want

both of them were being identified as

outsiders who are outside of the

establishment basically shaking up the

game

and i think that this popular narrative

isn't simply a deception

i think there's truth to it i think

there's truth to popular narratives

like this okay um

should we move on to some more concrete

matters arising um i just want to say so

do you

do if you disagree with me um do you

think at the very least that

even if you're disagreeing with it what

i'm saying isn't just nonsense maybe

there's some pattern to what i'm saying

i think you've got a kernel of truth

about the

rise of populism but i don't see that as

particularly maoist

if that was the original point we were

talking about but

i mean i've tried to explain yeah to the

best of my ability why

yeah that is but i don't maybe we would

we would need a longer conversation or

something or can you at least recognize

in good faith that i'm

i'm trying my best to uh make it

unaccountable to you

okay yeah that's fine okay yeah um

so uh you've described yourself as a

tanker right

right yeah so i'm not that's not a tag

i'm applying

to anyone here um but and i've got

issues with tankies in a number of

respects and someone actually asks um

on my end to uh

ask you about uh trans issues

where do you stand on that

um where do i stand on it i think that

uh well my view is that

transgender people um the minute this

becomes some kind of political

controversy

to me the reactionary position is always

bankrupt if transgender people are

demanding

uh not to be abused uh to be correctly

uh identified with

with their um with their gender and they

don't want

you know i don't see i think to me the

way i'm looking at the transgender issue

is that

i don't think transgender people are the

transgressors

if that makes sense i think they just

want to live normal

human lives uh with dignity and

much of the issue is coming from a very

perverse uh reactionary perspective

according to which

which to me actually epitomizes all of

the things

uh alien and grotesque things that

they're

throwing upon the transgender people to

me the reactionary position

has the fundamental pathologies they

attribute to transgender people who in

my experience

simply want to live normal human

dignified

lives so in a sense i'm almost a kind of

a

conservative pro transgender a guy i'm

not coming

at it from a progressive perspective

where i'm saying

well this is the march of progress and

we all must change i don't think we must

change i think that phenomena of

transgenderism for example

says something about humanity as it

actually

is here and now um

so it's not some kind of transgression

and another thing too

uh regarding this tanky thing i don't

see transgenderism as a strictly

uh western phenomena because to me

this strict uh strict and discreet

gender roles like as something airtight

comes after modernity in every all of my

studies of

gender in the pre-modern era for example

um it's much more ambiguous you know of

course there's a vague

two uh types of genders but

things are able to be more uh ambiguous

it's not put in a box

you know yeah okay um i think there's

some interesting

uh points to pick on there when you say

we don't have to

change what do you mean by that because

surely the way in which transgender

people are treated is

pretty disgusting from many perspectives

are you suggesting those other people

don't have to change or does that

reference to something else

those are the people who are

transgressing from

a basic human common sense according to

which people should be treated with

dignity and decency

and respect so to me they're the ones

trying to force a change is kind of the

paradoxical position i'm coming from

the people who are abusive against the

transgender people

those are the ones trying to initiate a

new change the transgender people

just want to be normal live normal

dignified human life yeah

so would you disagree therefore with the

um communist party of great britain

marxist leninist in their uh suggestion

that transgenderism

is a bourgeois disease yes uh

yes yes uh you know um i've actually

talked about this on stream

before i don't i well when i um many

positions i expressed maybe

you were against philosophically when i

mentioned

anglo-saxon metaphysics from the 17th

century

i actually said that the way in which

they understand gender is bogged down by

this

specific prejudice to me

this idea of uh gender being reducible

or being the same to some kind of

well the argument they always use is

that by sex is biological it's a

scientific

objective a reality and transgenderism

is some kind of

subjectivism to me this is a complete

misunderstanding

of of objectivity it's a

faulty notion of objectivity

uh i don't think uh i don't think it's

the case

i reject it on these grounds but i'm not

going to be an anglophobe

here but would you not agree that among

uk leftists and maybe i'm wrong i'm

completely wrong

on this so you can correct me if i'm

wrong in your own experience but it

seems to me that in the uk

many leftists many many leftists it

seems

this transgender issue seems to be

so so much of a big issue in the uk like

uh i think well i think it's a big issue

in america too but yeah it's it's an

issue here that

that's certainly the case um

a point i've um there's been an issue

uh for me is that you uh you've uh

stand for um caleb mopping

yes in some of the debates i've seen for

you but he does seem to think that

trans people are um are an issue let's

say

oh uh i disagree i think that he's been

accused of that but he's clarified that

that wasn't his position caleb caleb

maupin is not

uh against transgender people what one

of those

from my understanding is that he spoke

with someone

some type of leftist who happens to have

anti-transgender views and

they by but he himself clarified this

and did because

he didn't push back against them he just

sat there

making silly faces regularly just just

allowing this person to say horrific

things which

i can only think like if they were

saying those things about

about tankies frankly i think he might

have pushed back on that in a way

like it's it seems to me he's either

an exceptionally stupid person which

doesn't seem what does she say

analysis because i didn't watch the

whole video so do you know which oh well

jody um oh i've forgotten her surname

she's from the

cpg bml um

and she was basically saying that like i

say it was a bourgeois

decadent thing that this wasn't like a

real problem um

and uh he was basically just sat there

kind of nodding his head

not really pushing back and that seems

to me like if you actually give a shit

you would say something and he didn't

well her her opinion

i disagree with but maybe caleb and i

didn't watch the video in context you

know caleb maupin marched

for transgender rights a decade ago

before many leftists now who are

expressing support for it so but but

anyway um

if he didn't say anything when she said

she thinks it's a buddhism maybe he just

wanted to get the conversation along and

didn't want to go down

the rabbit hole and he didn't want to

deal with it you can say he's wrong for

this or he's

he's right for this whatever but i don't

think it's

fair to make the leap from that that

this means caleb maupin is against

transgender people when you have a human

conversation

sometimes to focus on more important

topics you have to let people say what

they want to say

and just move on it doesn't mean you

agree with it you know i think that's

kind of a given from for

most conversations you have whether

publicly or not you don't necessarily

have to

you know immediately yell at them or

something

because uh maybe he disagrees with her

about the transgender issue

but maybe he agrees with her about many

other topics that he

would prefer to have explored

okay well on on the issue that i mean is

of contention in the

mainstream in politics in america right

now how do you feel about trans kids

participating in uh sport with the the

agenda that they

are i i don't really feel anything about

it you know uh

what am i supposed to feel about it well

no well some people think that it's

wrong to allow people born with a penis

to compete in sporting events with um

people born with a vagina here's what i

would say i think this

matter must be left to those people who

want to

participate to the sports associations

and to the people who know more about

you know

who i'm i i simply don't think i'm in a

position to

to have a position on that matter i

don't but i don't find it

outrageous on an intuitive level if

that's what you're asking

okay no that's that's fine okay uh to

move to a sort of allied

topic you've described yourself as 100

stalinist

yes uh so gay people deserve to be in

gulags

no but uh you have to understand that in

context in the soviet union

not saying that this wasn't a mistake or

it's something that should be replicated

or something that has any place

in the modern world but in context

there was not a clear distinction

at this time between homosexuality which

was

associated with an aristocratic pastime

and pedestrian these were kind of

they weren't really well distinguished

phenomena it was associated with the

former aristocracy

now of course we know now that

homosexuality is not

aristocratic but at the time in the

soviet union that was the extent to

which

it was being given a significance it was

being given significance with that

association

uh but that was that would have been

yeah but that still would have been

enormous hypocrisy on stalin's part

though because he was both bisexual and

a pederast

uh i disagree with both of those uh

things but before we get into

that whole well you can disagree but

they're historically we'll get into a

little bit we'll get into it we'll get

into what we'll do with the

the evidence that stands in relation to

that but um

regarding this um this stuff

i don't think that the soviet union's

police

policies on homosexuality in the 30s

are sent what essentially defines this

word stalinism because it's not really

uh it's not really a given

i mean it's not really uh out of the

ordinary for states at the time

uh so much so to me we say we're 100

stalinism we're saying in so far as the

phenomena of stalinism

uh can be intelligible for us and can be

significant

for us as something new for its time we

are 100 percent

stalinist now regarding this business

about stalin being bisexual and being a

pedestrian i'm going to completely uh

deny that

it's completely false

on what basis do you know about uh it

has no basis

is the point i don't think that has any

basis whatsoever

what evidence do you have he was

bisexual that's a new one to me i've

never heard i will

you've never heard that stalin had uh

relations with with men after his wife

had died

i've never heard you're unaware of it

i've never heard that

i've never heard that even if it was it

wouldn't make a difference but i have

never heard that before

well the thing is it would make a

difference because you're suggesting

that

this was somehow a misunderstanding on

stalin's part where stalin himself was

no well no i i don't because uh

the phenomena even if he was personally

the phenomena

was associated with the aristocracy it

wasn't he wasn't saying that

it means you're an aristocrat it's just

that insofar as this was a prevalent

phenomena in soviet society it was

associated with that

former aristocracy now that doesn't mean

that stalin

had his own association but i think it's

a complete

falsehood where have you gotten this

idea that stalin was bisexual i just

want to know where you got it from

uh well i read it in several historical

sources i will go through on a stream a

different time

i'll be honest i've put zero uh sources

together for this

show neither me neither but uh yeah i'd

love to know

you know where you got that from because

that's completely okay well i'll

i'll put that together um at some point

in the future

um can you explain to me yeah the phrase

marxism leninism in a multi in the age

of multiple whole bit about him being a

pedestrian before we get into that one

the whole thing about that

i think that's complete slander and

that's a lie too

well that's still there

um i i can't remember the woman's name

i'm gonna

probably look this one i'm pretty hated

darling uh

i didn't eat i think he had sex with

like a 14 year old girl or something

yeah when he was in exile in siberia

this had nothing from a cultural

perspective at the time to do with

pedestrian though

at the time there was no comparison to

pedestrian

uh he was 36 years old and began a

sexual relationship with the 13 year old

lydia pepe

which is grotesque from a modern

prospective culture

horrible cortes but at the time it

wasn't the case and

these things change historically okay no

that's not

they said even in the crippling russian

empire the age of consent was 14

so even by that standard he was still

having us

wasn't she not no she was 13.

okay well at the time it was not

something

uh so out of the ordinary so i don't see

what your point is

well no whether it's out of the ordinary

or not um

i think it's it shines a light on the

idea that he was doing this because of

some misunderstanding on the basis of

allegedly being connected to pederasty

when he was a pederast

no but it had there was a phenomena of

pedestrian

in the russian empire it was a pastime

of the russia

it had no it but pedestrian had nothing

to do with stalin's relationship with

that

uh that person nothing to do with it

it was there's no association it didn't

repetitively yeah

he was 36 and she was 13. i don't know

how else but this is not how pedestrian

was defined at that time it was 14 was

the age i just told you

it's not no uh just it was no no no

listen pedestri what i'm trying to say

pedestrian was

uh probably centuries old tradition in

the russian empire among the aristocracy

it was a specific cultural phenomena and

practice

stalin was not replicating and

reproducing that cultural phenomena in

practice

she was allegedly a year younger than

the age of consent that doesn't

suffice to qualify stalin as a

pedestrian pedestrian

uh sorry it well

i mean whether he's

repre replicating a um

a uh culture or not he's still engaging

in the pressure would not have been

associated with pedestrian

whatsoever at that time is what i'm

asserting he would not have been

associated with pedestrian

whatsoever either in that village or

throughout the russian empire as a whole

for engaging uh in what you're saying

none whatsoever that he would not

associate with pedestrian at that time

whatsoever can you not see how

you've painted yourself into a weird

corner here because

because you're doing a kind of weird

hero worship on stalin you're defending

a 36 year old man fucking a third

i'm doing no such thing i don't need to

really mad man i don't need to defend

that

i'm defending against the slander that

at that time he would have been

considered

a pedestrian and now he would he would

be a pedophile

of course he would be a pedophile for

something so grotesque and disgusting

now but at that time he would not have

been considered

anything related to industry whatsoever

okay

okay but i mean that still calls into

question why you would be 100 percent

stalinist

yeah no i don't actually clarify his

sexual properties aren't necessarily

to do with his philosophy but you can

understand my

concern when you would associate

yourself with someone and like

several accounts i think such a concern

would be unfounded the first one is that

i've already qualified what we mean by

100

stalinist and maoists and as i said it

has nothing to do

with replicating the exact historical

conditions that gave rise to those

phenomena but on the second account you

yourself mentioned it

stalin's personal relations when he was

36 years old in exile

in siberia that is not what defines

the phenomena of stalinism you know the

revisionist school of soviet history and

this sounds like a bad term revisionist

but they're very well accepted in the

academies

people like um what's her name

applebaum fitzpat uh sheila fitzpatrick

have you heard of her

the name rinse of bell button renowned

historian of

soviet history they teach her in the

university so when i say revisionist i

don't mean like

what it sounds like are those recognized

in the 30s called the stalin revolution

this is what brought meaning to

stalinism it wasn't just

one guy or even one guy's philosophy it

was a historical event

in the 30s a new historical event the

same thing is true for maoism

yeah okay that's that's um

that's fine um you also uh

well bringing it up to date you also uh

deny that there's a uyghur genocide

taking place

yes i completely deny that on what basis

do you deny that

i denied on the basis that the

the proposition that there's a weaker

genocide the only thing that has

breathed existence into this meme

has insufficiently supported itself it

has not supported

the conclusion that that was arrived at

there is no evidence there is a weaker

genocide therefore i have no reason to

think

there's a weaker gender there's quite a

lot of evidence would some of you had

evidence

um photographic evidence evidence you

have the

i'm not going to hold you to it for

having them now because you didn't

prepare it i completely understand

but yeah but you must know that yeah but

what i will say

there are photographs but what are what

are what are those four

photographs showing they're not showing

a genocide

rows and rows of male shaven

prisoners lined up there there are

prisons in

xinjiang and there's also prisons

china for han people now obviously in

xiang

if i'm pronouncing that right the

prisoners will be majority uighur

now i won't deny the fact that there are

special what the chinese government

calls them special vocational centers

specifically for uyghur people in

xinjiang

whether those exist in eastern china i'm

not familiar enough

to know that so i won't say well

considering the

xi jinping is a pretty substantial hand

supremacist i would suggest that the

hand prisons are mainly for hand

prisoners

actually whereas these are probably

re-education camps to try and drive

a native uh culture from the country

which would be

at least cultural genocide it's

interesting you mentioned that because

we actually have a chinese chinese

member within our collective infrared

and he knows the trends that are going

on on chinese social media and within

china

right han supremacy and han nationalism

was precisely the phenomena that

predated xi jinping

and xi jinping the era of xi jinping has

is precisely what has outmoded han

supremacy you have to understand that

chinese so-called chinese nationalism

and patriotism

encompasses all of china's specific

ethnicities

so han supremacy was more associated

actually with liberalism and actually

it's similar in russia too

russian ethnic nationalism is navalny

putin stands for

russia as a supra ethnic state so xi

jinping is the same

people obviously not a han supremacist

because i would

i would point you in the direction of um

chechnya

and the treatment of the muslims there

by

the putin regime as a precise example of

that not necessarily being the case

i'm not going to stick up for navalny

but putin's garbage now that we're on

the subject of russia

it was an ugly war that chechen wore in

the 90s and the 2000s

but after that war what is going what

has been happening mosques are being

built all over chechnya the chechen

people have

an incredible level of autonomy they're

almost

it's almost like uh a certain state just

to an extent so once you've

yeah so it's okay to have slaughtered

them as long as you're now allowing them

to build mosques

it was a horrible and ugly war right but

it wasn't a genocide you know it wasn't

a genocide but i didn't say that was a

genocide okay

i'm saying that the thing happening in

china is a genocide but i'm just saying

your idea

ethnic nationalism is okay are we going

back to china or we want to stick on

russia now because

i can say more about russia but i can

also go back to china it's up to you

whichever you prefer okay okay sure

going back to russia

just because the chechen war was a

brutal war doesn't mean that the

linchpin of this brutality was that

putin was a russian ethnic nationalist

who wanted to exterminate the chechen

people

putin considered the separatism in

chechnya

to be something that is undermining

russia as this big space this

multi-polar

civilization sorry multi-ethnic uh

civilization

so it's not it doesn't mean he's a

racist for example

the second thing i would argue i would

argue it certainly

is a pretty strong indication of that

but also what's his issue with

self-determination

yeah i'm just open as from an open

perspective why do you think he's racist

um i think a lot of what he plays into

a lot of the groups he stands um

are pretty fucking disgustingly racist

outside of russia is what you mean no

but inside of russia he's um

there have been various neo-nazi groups

who have been um

egg done by his people because he

essentially uses them as a sort of

pseudo brown shirtist movement to attack

gay people for instance

you're talking about the what are they

called the nashi

the nashi youth right they fight they're

called anti-fascists they fight

neo-nazis

neo-nazism in russia has been in the

decline ever since the war in

ukraine where nazism has now been

associated with ukrainian

nationalism so putin is not well no i

mean i'm

to be honest i'm against most forms of

nationalism if not

all relay but whatever i mean the the

basic point i would

draw back to is even if it was not

racially based why are we supposed to be

okay with the guy who

will brutally and violently repress

people's self-determination if chechnya

is set on becoming its own thing then i

don't see

why violent murderous repression is okay

well um the to play the devil's advocate

from the russian perspective

historically russian civilization has

incompetent many

ethnicities in many nations and they

would they viewed the separatism

in chechnya for example as a type of

american ploy to

undermine this russian civilization so

they didn't actually associate it with

the inner striving of the chechen people

okay but that's i mean regardless of

who's doing what and where

the point being if the chechen people

wish to leave yeah it's not the

acceptable moral thing to do to brutally

slaughter them

like the breakup of the soviet union

happened and it didn't turn

to or for the most part in turn seen

uh bloodletting those those countries

and those different nationalities and

those

different um ethnicities became their

own countries and that was fine

yeah well uh the troubling thing is how

do a people

express their will for sovereignty

there's two examples that i think and

i'm not trying to

hound you or make this as a gotcha

because i don't know your position

necessarily

but it's interesting that in crimea when

people voted in a referendum

overwhelmingly to go to the russian

federation that was considered

an occupation of crimea on russia's part

the second thing is that catalonia

wasn't even allowed to express its

sovereignty in spain

uh yeah and yet spain is held nowhere

near to the standard

as uh no oh he's russian yeah

the fact that the catalan independence

leadership is still in prison is a

disgusting blight on spain and on europe

as a whole i quite agree with you there

but that doesn't um change anything else

elsewhere in this in a sense um i don't

know

the rights and wrongs of the crimean um

vote but i would it wouldn't surprise me

if the crimean people did vote that way

and if it were that way then they should

be allowed to secede and become part of

the russian federation if they so wish

that's interesting it's very interesting

um i'm genuinely i'm for

self-determination i think democracy is

a good thing

i i'm i'm not familiar that the chechen

people

voted in a referendum to express i don't

know i don't think they did but i think

it was pretty

clear that they a very significant chunk

of the population wanted to leave they

didn't feel

and i think many still don't feel

russian yeah

but this is the troubling thing with

issues of sovereignty and

statehood it's that um being able to

establish

independence and uh sovereignty

is uh as in all things the state is

built upon violence

right so any type of secession

uh any type of secession whatsoever is a

declaration of war in a sense against

the state within which the territory

not not remotely no i i completely uh

well in a manner that's outside of the

law in a manner outside of the law well

that's

well yeah in that case then the uh

catalan you can't have a problem with

what happened in catalonia because that

wasn't sanctioned by the spanish

government

well uh i i know that from the spanish

government's perspective

it can find a way to justify it i side

explicitly think no no

people but i'm not sure it doesn't for

you but it doesn't need to

you under your under your definition

that you have to get

the say so of the central government no

no i'm not saying and the catholic

the catalan leaders cannot possibly have

any complaint because the spanish

government did not allow that please

don't misunderstand me i'm not saying

you need the i'm saying that

politics in statehood is based on

violence it's

also true in in catalonia um

it's but i just wish that they would

hold

spain to the same standard that they're

doing to these other countries or they

wouldn't hold anyone to that standard

whatsoever

is what i'm trying to point out but in

my view

for example a liberation struggle

colonial liberation struggle you don't

ask permission

to wage a violent war of liberation you

just do it or you fail

that's how i view statehood in general

states are based on violence

and uh it is a matter of yeah it's a

matter of

jungle there's no common uh bond

going to implement rules and decide that

outcome but in the case of chechnya

we can identify the leaders of the

catalan independence movements

who were the leaders of the chechen

separatism

and secession and would you be so keen

on identifying with them because i

certainly

don't have an issue supporting the

catalan forces of independence

but i i wonder if you would take issue

supporting the

forces of secession oh

well i don't know the individuals

involved but in general i stand with

yeah well yeah or organization yeah i

don't i can't

speak to that off the top of my head but

um i got no problem with standing with

the chechen people

but i don't know the leadership of that

organism of those organizations

particularly well

but how are those people according to

you given being given expression in the

case of the separatism because

as we as maybe uh you're not familiar

with this that's completely fine

but you know that um foreign imported

islamic fundamentalism

was the prevailing uh force behind the

separatism it was

possibly behind the possibly behind the

the violence involved yeah

although again i i'm i'm not gonna

for a second stand up for any fucking

islamist nonsense of course

but what i will say is that if you see

people

who you consider your kin in some

respect

being brutally oppressed by uh russians

you might well go there in the same way

that i mean

it's a different historical perspective

but if the same way that people in the

mujahideen who weren't necessarily from

afghanistan

if you see what you consider to be your

land being in

invaded by foreigners you're far more

likely to go there and

um but defend your people but don't you

think it's a little curious that

it seems like you're more concerned

about chechen independence now

than the chechen people themselves are i

haven't seen any indications that people

in chechnya

no i'm not no no but it's not a massive

priority

uh how are they doing you know this was

my question today well i'm not

suggesting they necessarily are now but

i'm saying they were in the past and i

just raised that

as an example of maybe vladimir putin

not being the

uh soft fluffy multi-ethnic liberal you

want to try and make him out to be

please don't get me wrong my paradigm of

multi-ethnic

polarity and civilization and policy

doesn't actually come from liberalism it

comes from

genghis khan it comes from the mongol

era that type of universality

you have to understand that well but

brutally right

multi-ethnic civilization and this type

of ambiguous

national syncretism predates liberalism

by centuries by several centuries yeah

it was the default for human

civilization before the nation state and

before

uh liberalism actually there was no uh

pure of blood ethnic nationalism before

liberalism actually no well yeah

basically so yes

that's that is true um i find it

interesting that you would pre-named

genghis khan though jesus um

well yeah the mongol empire was a

multi-ethnic and multi-religious

uh civilization it wasn't just the rule

of all

the mongols over everyone well yeah but

he didn't do so by

being nicely nicely with different

racial groupings it

brutally repressed anyone with any

dissent whatsoever he was a conqueror

yes but states are built

as such uh this is the history of

humanity that we have to face

but um it's it's not it's just as true

as in as europe as it was in uh

in asia because of um a type of uh

prejudice maybe we see the mongols as

far more savage

and uh brutal well i i don't know i

think the romans were equally savage

and the roman empire to be fair was also

a multi-ethnic

it actually had in terms of nationalism

it had a far more um

progressive look at things you were

either a roman or you were not

roman those were the two races basically

which is an interesting take on things

um

uh yeah um so yeah

in terms of um your defense of vladimir

putin as well

his suppression of gay people um

following in a line it seems from stalin

of um

russian leaders who or well technically

he wasn't russian he was georgian

but leaders of russia who were um

incredibly homophobic oh i i don't deny

that

homophobia is an extremely prevalent

issue

within russia for russian non-uh

non-heterosexual people themselves

because it's not an issue for us it's an

issue for them

it's about them right so i don't deny

them that and i don't deny their

struggle against that i just ha i just

take issue with the view

that this somehow qualifies putin as a

fascist i don't think being homophobic

means you're a fascist

no but it's well that in of itself isn't

no but

his um bullying of smaller countries

that neighbor him his uh repression

of internal descent is clamped on the

media he's kicking out foreign ngos

he's engaging in spies uh on a true

almost soviet style level his repression

of gay people to the point where

the moscow pro parade is banned for a

century

um all of this put together makes him

sound quite fascinating

well a few things you mentioned the one

is that you mentioned he's bullying

small

countries well it's interesting that

after the dissolution of the soviet

union

nato promised it wouldn't include any

more states

within nato as soon as the soviet union

collapsed

what happened the eastern european

countries started joining nato

and mass obviously russia is going to

take

a hostile attitude towards some of these

small neighbors but

these small neighbors are with nato

they're associated with nato russia sees

us as an encroachment

upon its own sovereignty and its own uh

security so

russian perspective is that they're

engaging in a type of self-defense not

the chauvinistic

type of genocidal and exterminationist

no i didn't say it was extermination

with with fascism for example

you can maybe say that putin is not a

liberal democrat

if that's what you're saying foreign

ngos by the way i would definitely say

he's not democratic yes

you've mentioned a lot of things about

uh

related to geopolitics foreign and we

have for example

small businesses i argued about this

with destiny he said some businesses

came from russia and spread memes

and this was russian intervention in

democracy well ngos are not

universal global you know neutral

entities they're aligned they have

certain geopolitical

alignments in this case with america and

the european union

so we have an easy time seeing russia as

an alien force

why isn't russia allowed to see the west

as an alien

air force no no i've got no problem with

them doing that if you look at the

the way in which like you say nato was

expanded or

the fact that there's a ring of nuclear

weapons basically around the entirety of

russia

i've no problem with russia feeling

threatened and seeing the west as an

alien thing but you'll note that russia

today is allowed

to exist in the uk in france i think

it's still got a license in america

which is essentially russian state

television

but the bbc is often banned in russia

uh foreign ngos are banned in russia

that suggests to me that one side is at

least open to

russia in a way that russia is not open

to anyone else

um yeah i would suggest that again

belies a certain flashy tendency within

putin's

uh governance uh along with the murder

of journalists and political opponents

and stuff

which is very very reminiscent of 20

20th century fascism well it's

reminiscent of 20th century so-called

non-liberal authoritarianism in general

but we'll get to that

including the communist states but we'll

we'll get to that later

i want to say about this business about

ngos from the russian perspective

precisely the opposite is true from

the russian perspective russia is too

open to the west

while the west is treating russia

unfairly

yes russian news is allowed to exist in

america because america's laws america

claims

america is the one claiming to be a

liberal democracy

uh russia doesn't claim to be a liberal

democracy so it doesn't have an

obligation to tolerate

all these types of speech no it no when

it didn't have to tolerate anything but

your argument was that he wasn't a

fascist i i don't think that just

because you're not a liberal

i i don't think everything outside of

liberalism is fascism is my point no no

i've given you a disguise a list of

concrete actions that putin has engaged

in

all of which conform to fascist

tendencies fascistic

is the problem but they are they're

absolutely core cornerstones of 20th

century

european fascisms they absolutely are

they if you do a tick box of what did

hitler do what did mussolini do what did

franco do

they they all checked the list but this

is

other than concentration camps he's

basically

he's got the the former quota but my

contention is that

this is true for all non-liberal uh

societies in the 20th century

not just the fascist one so i want to

know what is essentially fascistic about

this because

i like in a previous argument i said i

put it this way

nazis wear shoes i wear shoes does this

make me a nazi

no because essentially speaking what

defines nazism what's not this

just please let me continue now from the

liberal perspective it may be

that cl uh big strong man

authoritarianism and clamping down

on free speech is what essentially

defines fascism

but i consider this uh a narrow

perspective of the liberal

subjectivity not an eternal one

and to be fair if you are a liberal and

you just

simply consider everything outside of

liberalism as fascist

that clarifies to me your your position

very well but i

i uh declined to accept that this is

true for everyone we communists

uh stalinists we don't see fascism

simply as

uh so-called authoritarianism or

illiberalism

so it's not enough to be outside of

liberalism

and let's call a spade a spade the

specific

continuity institutionally historically

politically like concretely like actual

inheritance of the institution of

anglo-saxon liberalism because

liberalism

originates in uh in england and through

america and so on and so on

this uh this is uh

not the supreme form of

civilization beyond which is fascism

no well absolutely no i agree with that

last point and i'm not a liberal myself

although you did call me that in the

twitch title to this um but that's

that's fine you can have your opinion

um that this the question your title is

great less

less uh genuine well yeah my mind was

that was a joke though to me

yes i called myself a chad like it's you

know anyone um but the point being is

that

um the comparison to eyewear shoes

therefore

and hitler wore shoes that's nonsense

obviously

wearing shoes is a very everyday thing

that everyone does

whether you're a fascist a liberal or

anything yeah clamping down on the media

uh killing journalists and political

opponents doing so on foreign soil which

is

objectively an act of war um doing all

of those things is not an everyday

occurrence i don't know if you or i have

ever

murdered a political opponent in a

foreign country for instance

a few things uh america has done all

those things and we don't call them yeah

absolutely yeah but well i would call it

fascist

i would call it

yeah america has done that yes yeah so

but uh the things i would say though is

that

yes everyone wears shoes but then i

would also say everyone outside of

liberalism

uh considers the speech that can be

tolerated within the country

the type of media that is tolerated

within my liberalism does that too

actually as it works out but well

i would actually point that to the fact

that liberalism is uh

untenable hypocritical and unsustainable

and

self-contradictory so that's how well i

don't know about unsustainable but i

would certainly say it's hypocritical

yes

but the point being is that i'm not

suggesting that you're either liberal or

fascist i think that's a very

reductive way of approaching anything i

think you can say that maybe you're

liberal-ish or authoritarian and that

with inside authoritarianism is fascism

and if you want to just fall back on

putin's an authoritarian

instead that's fine but it doesn't make

it any better yeah like for example

genghis khan if someone wrote on a

scribe fuck genghis khan or whatever

kangaskhan would probably have his head

right is he a fascist

yeah no because it's outside while he

was

he was pre-liberalism well he was

pre-fascism so that wouldn't really make

any sense historically speaking

but i guess you're making it this is my

issue though is that why

is it that after this threshold of

nazism emerging

this becomes the supreme measure

everything therefore after nazism

because we saw could because humanity

saw the

destructive effects that fascism had so

people are very very sensitive to the

rise of fascism because

we don't want to go back to that place

again but abstractly speaking

as a stalinist surely you must be aware

uh

intrinsically as as to the destructive

nature of that russia

while the soviet union suffered more

than any country

of course but from the stalinist

perspective

uh from that perspective anti-fascism

means

something different from the stalinist

perspective

nato inherited the exterminationist

and genocidal threat that the

germany which was considered the west

nazism

uh posed to the soviet union uh the

warsaw pact

the statue where is the statue i forget

of the soldier with a sword carrying a

baby on his shoulder

that basically you know what i'm talking

about her you know i'm referring

i i don't know

they view that american liberalism as

the heir

to fascism and soviet propaganda during

the cold war

the idea was that and i think this is

pretty much true

the fundamental drive of

military-industrial complex created

in a nazi germany was inherited

by the american deep state and i think

this is true

i would argue that um whilst i think

that probably is true i think

a lot of the criticisms that could be

made about the american state can also

be made about

the soviet union too which ones just

were clear

um it's an imperialist um

agenda in several parts of the world um

you mean afghanistan

well not just afghanistan but

afghanistan's a pretty

well the most recent one because

obviously happened just before

the dissolution and all of that or about

a decade before

um but yeah that's it's

its use of pseudo imperialism in the

eastern bloc after the second world war

as well

isn't exactly great and i understand and

again

i absolutely understand in the same way

that russia now sees the west as a

threat

it could understand it doing so um

especially when

the west had a nuclear weapon and russia

didn't during that period

that's fine but that doesn't make it any

less imperialism

i actually don't think uh any of this

qualifies as imperialism obviously

russia was the boss of the eastern bloc

everyone knew it it wasn't formally

instantiated anywhere but everyone

acknowledged that

but then again all political realities

have unwritten

dynamics uh but nowhere was this everly

formally written in stone

it just was the case objectively maybe

but that's true for everything right you

can't just call it fascists because it

cannot be exhausted within

uh universal equality of liberalism

uh the second thing is that um there is

no comparison

between the the way the ussr

whether in afghanistan or anywhere else

in the world no comparison between

the ussr's foreign

relations to the level of american

universalistic intervention

interventionism and containment policy

during the cold war simply no comparison

if anything it's completely the opposite

the soviet union's

so-called military-industrial complex

serve the purpose of aiding peoples of

the world

fighting against colonialism and uh

european and american imperialism this

soviet union's

so-called because i saw someone in your

chat say didn't the soviet union have a

military-industrial complex

well it depends on what you mean

obviously it was manufacturing arms to

defend itself

and it was manufacturing a lot of

weapons and so on to send to people

fighting for their liberation but it

wasn't doing this for the purpose of

um for engaging in a chauvinistic

exterminationist war of uh of

uh genocide against the people it deems

inferior and

lesser to itself well i don't know what

it has to be exterminationist to be

i can actually explain that to you to be

imperialist i can explain that too if

you want yeah go for it yeah well what i

view it actually is that

we have to go back i'm sure i'm not

going to detour this derail it's just

it's going to seem like it's not

relevant

you're going to see how it's relevant we

have to go back to modernity

modernity began in uh

netherlands or england somewhere like

that right uh

this is where what we call modernity

began and liberalism and so on and so on

um modern civilization so-called modern

civilization was first emerged in europe

right the trouble is is that

modernity was something so traumatic in

the way it overturned

the past that um

this trauma was exported elsewhere with

colonialism in europe like

the century of humiliation when with the

gunpowder diplomacy against japan and

all this was incredibly shocking to me

against these other people

the issue is that when non-western

peoples

pass through this trial

of modernity to industrialize themselves

to enter the fold of modern civilization

in an independent way

there is an impulse within the west

an exterminationist and genocidal

attitude

towards them because the west uh

the west does not acknowledge uh does

not acknowledge

any type of possible uh civilization

beyond its own it's this primordial type

of

universalism that begins with western

modernity

according to which the west is the only

real civilization and any other

civilization that attempts to break out

of the western

world order must be kept down suppressed

exterminate now in case of a nazism in

germany

there is no meaning to fascism there's

no meaning to nazism without the context

of the soviet union in my view in my

view the

germans were trying to

uh we're trying to repress the way that

the soviet union

passed through modernity in an

independent way while

reviving the russian special russian

civilization

the nazis i'm not sure that works on the

basis that

nazism arose before

russia had really industrialized

it's not important that it

industrialized yet it had the october

revolution this is what sent the shock

waves

the uh the fear yeah it was the october

revolution

but i think that the reason the nazis

ever got to power

though and this is the important thing

was because the

german ruling classes and the again no

anglophobia here but it's just a matter

of historical fact

the american and english elites

alongside the german industrial

industrialists

wanted to destroy the soviet union

basically

and this is why this is what enabled uh

hitler to

well i don't think it's about destroying

the soviet they certainly feared

uh communism and you had obviously the

um

uh the communist revolution in is it

babaria before

um and they're put down by the frey

corps and all that

yeah um uh you that's that's definitely

a problem but i don't think that had

anything to do with the soviet union as

such because the soviet union wasn't

really interfering with

large parts of europe because it was

still reeling from a civil war

true true yes but here's the issue is

that

the soviet union its mere

existence was a defiance of the western

world order so

what you're describing as the um specter

of communism at this specific point of

history can be

understood in two ways the first way is

the fact that the 19th century liberal

order

broke down with 1929 the crash of

the great depression it was clear some

type of social revolution was imminent

you know not necessarily a political

revolution but there was an objective

social revolution

happening that changed the way

governments relate to the economy

the welfare state and new deal and all

that attest to this

um but that was generally associated

with this new

thing represented by the soviet union

communism and

soviet union is what gave proof to the

fact that it was a real

possibility a real threat the second

thing

was this decline uh or the threat

uh threat to the world colonial order

the soviet union uh the soviet union

also was a beacon of light

and hope to the colonized peoples of the

world

its existence was a defiance of uh

the west's colonial uh rule so um

there's two here instituting its own

colonial rule

even if the conditions would have been

slightly better in some respects

doesn't make it less colonial and

doesn't make it therefore less

yeah who's going but i would argue the

way in which

the russians treated eastern europe was

essentially little more than

you mean yeah i don't agree i don't

agree i don't agree that it was

comparable

to colonialism maybe you can say it's

comparable to the neocolonialism that

people

talk about in relation between the

united states

what's that it's vassalage not formally

though so it's not colonialism why

doesn't matter

well look in the same way that a mafia

boss will tell you you know

yeah this is the unwritten reality of

all relation between states

no such thing exactly but the point is

the point is

just because it's not written down

joseph stalin want to fuck you over

czechoslovakia

doesn't mean he doesn't want to fuck

over czechoslovakia i think this

reflects

differing views of geopolitics from the

liberal perspective

and a more post-liberal maybe communist

perspective

just because uh it would not have been

tolerated for eastern european states

to defy this soviet union doesn't mean

that they weren't they they weren't

allowed to be given particular

national self-determination and uh

expression

yes it there is no i'll explain

please let me continue um the reason is

because

the liberal view of rights is basically

a blank check

a blank check i have the right to do it

no matter the circumstances

is what it is and this is the condition

of equality but a post-liberal view

communistic view if you will

uh or marxist view whatever you want

asian view maybe

is basically that there is no blank

check the relation is always a

determinant relation so there's a

meaning to define the soviet union

it's not simply a blanket expression of

your own uh

sovereignty in actual concrete terms

defiance of the soviet union means

you're allying with the west

that's what it actually means concretely

now from the past

from the perspective but it doesn't

literally mean that and if you're going

to say

that these you you're you're free as

long as you do exactly what i want you

to do but what is that

that's just slavery by a different name

there's a few problems with this

what is the content of this want the

soviet union wants these

countries not to ally with the west

other than that what does the soviet

union care

uh that they do independently they there

was an incredible degree of flexible

they want to make sure in the same way

for example for example in the same way

trade you can get raw materials from

these other countries

in ways that you want to but what you're

saying doesn't even make sense

why was it that romania was able to defy

the soviet union why was yugoslavia able

to defy

the soviet union the only time the

soviet union invaded czechoslovakia

which by the way had nothing to do with

stalin but the only time the soviet

union invaded hungary in czechoslovakia

was when the communist governments in

those countries were begging the soviet

union to intervene

the soviet union wasn't just saying you

yeah

yeah yeah when they when russia's public

governments

asked the russian goods to go in there

they imperialistically went in there and

slaughtered people

agreed with imperialism but i think

there's no worse

than the french slaughtering those in

ivory coast or the british firing upon

the indians there's no person you call

them a puppet government

i think those represented the

independent communist forces within

those countries

now you can call them but they're not

independent we've already said they're

not independent because if they don't do

what russia tells them

i disagree with your view of sovereignty

and uh

independence i simply disagree i think

all states under your

that could exist that isn't basically

imperialism in practice it's not

imperialist

whatsoever because my view for example

of the mongol universality not the

liberal universality is based on

determinate

relations uh has nothing to do with his

blank check

rights of so it's just might means right

then what's that

it's just might means right if i've got

a bigger sticker than you i get to tell

you what to do

arbitrariness that isn't there maybe

it's might is right

but there is a determinate content of

that might it's not a random completely

arbitrary completely senseless

meaningless

arbitrary power it has a determinate

content

that's the difference right but that

doesn't make any difference to the fact

like this bigger power is still

imperialistically

forcing its will on smaller powers

i don't care what you call

qualified as imperialist is the problem

though it can be qualified as

imperialist

because uh there is no there is no

blanket

uh intervention into countries that from

a civilizational

perspective have no it doesn't it

doesn't have to be blanket

i think it does i think it does i think

american imperialism european

imperialism is completely different

completely different

from soviet intervention into other

countries

and in the one of the reasons this is

self-evident i'm not sure it is

i'm not i'm really not sure it's like i

say at the the

um invasion of uh czechoslovakia or

anywhere else

that russia got involved in when you're

slaughtering innocents

it looks a lot the same as the french in

the ivory coast or britain and

itself czech slovak government was

telling the soviet union to intervene

and they did

yeah the puppet government that's at the

behest of moscow

is merely that it's taking orders from

moscow but it's not everything

it is it is

it is subservient to moscow to the

extent and even this is contestable by

the way

and you didn't really respond this what

i brought up earlier

uh it is contestable that for example

it even must must agree with the soviet

union's

uh foreign policy like there had to be a

consensus between all these governments

we know that because of romania

we know it because of yugoslavia why was

romania able to defy

the soviet union if what you're saying

is true romania did defy the soviet

union and did leave the full

no no eastern bloc absolutely yeah it

was just

here's what for instance eastern

governments were not soviet puppet

governments they were ruled by

independent what i mean by independent

is that these were communists

who were not simply blind puppets but

had their own communistic

vision for their nation in their

countries yeah

yeah they were they were they were

essentially i would uh make them

i would describe them as being like the

sat traps of the ancient world

they had a certain amount of power

within their own

borders but were essentially when it

came down to the big important issues

they were puppets this is true

if we create this idea maybe it's a real

idea of a big

communistic empire but not it's not

simply a relation of imperialism between

the soviet union imposing

itself on them then you would say it's

one big

empire and they were the sad traps of

this one big empire that wasn't formally

uh instantiated it's an empire it's

you've just described it as an empire

imperialism

this empire is not the soviet union

controlling them

it is one big empire of which they are

all apart

if you want to use this but the soviet

union

again it's not formal we know that we've

agreed on that yeah but when ro when

moscow says a thing

they're not really powerful enough to

not do the thing

so it's basically the same but this is

but

india not being able to say no to london

in 1850

listen there's no such thing as the

blank check of liberal sovereignty in

the real world there's no such thing

there are determinants no there's not

really there's no there's no absolute

blank checks to anything

this is the mongol view of universality

as opposed to the liberal one

formally speaking there was no uh

imperialism now maybe you can say in

practice they didn't have the right to

defy the soviets

exactly yeah but just trying to say well

we didn't write it

but in this sense in this sense i would

say rights don't even exist

you don't have a right in the real world

to have a wonder

work rights don't actually exist they

don't grow on trees

no obviously not rights are enforced by

might in a sense of course but the point

being

that if you're going to have um an

actual sovereign nation it has to be

sovereign

and those of the eastern bloc during the

time where uh

um before the sort of

the beginning is of the end let's say

for the soviet union um

they that was absolutely an empire of

satraps

and just because the sat trap asks the

uh the

the was it grand vizier or whatever it's

called to come in

and solve its problems for it that's not

an independent government asking for

assistance from another sovereign nation

well

in that case patsy asking its boss to

cover its line manager to come down and

sort the situation for it

in that case it's one big policy then

it's not just

one uh nation imposing itself on another

it's one big polity and it's organized

in a certain way no it's

no it's not because no because poland

didn't get to say to moscow or well on

this occasion we're having a right

poland just that's objective reality

poland was not strong enough to by the

way

you're saying might is right and the

empire is fine objectively

this is the sobering truth of reality

but i want to say a few things there's a

few reasons why this is a little bit

confusing

the first one is people in my chat i

just want to tell them guys i'm not

talking about lenin's imperialism

because we're talking about imperialism

um in the more charged sense within the

cold war of the

unprecedented and chauvinistic way in

which

european countries and america are

intervening in other countries so

i know there's a more technical meaning

but i'm using the common sense one we

don't have to get into this

like technical one the second one

the second thing is regarding this

meaning of imperialism

the point of imperialism is not that it

is wrong

per se from a normative whatever

perspective the point of imperialism is

that marxists objectively

recognized in the in anti-imperialist

position

the revolutionary one the one in which

and hears the actual future

it's not simply that we say imperialism

is morally wrong

we say the forces of anti-imperialism

will prevail objectively

there's a quote from mao zeitung the

winds

blow in the eastern direction it wasn't

this moral claim that

i believe imperialism is wrong therefore

no you don't begin there first you begin

with

what are the forces of anti-imperialism

and what is

imperialism objectively when we

understand it from that perspective it

clarifies why the soviet union is not

imperialist well yeah but that's a

there's a lot of special pleading going

on here

you're basically trying to redefine what

imperialism is so that the obvious

materialism of the soviet union isn't

imperialism i'm rejecting the moralistic

and over uh normative sense you

are attributing to the word imperialism

of course might is right

but anti-imperialists would say the

mighty belong

the anti-imperialist forces are the

mighty ones and the imperialists are the

paper tigers

that's the of course might be right

there's no denying that well yeah but

you're

you're defining from the very start

you're going backwards at this you're

saying the soviet union

was anti-imperialist when its actions

clearly show that it wasn't no it its

actions

uh correspond to the decline of western

imperialist global order

well it coincided but i mean

it could be argued that america

perspective

saying there was a special social

imperialism unique

to the soviet union itself that was

being a new type of system that was

created

besides the western kind i think is

where you're coming from

i think right but i don't care my

problem isn't western imperialism it's

imperialism full stop there's no such

thing as imperialism in general

imperialism is always concrete there's

no

gender no it's no it's always different

but my point is yeah i've never seen an

example where imperialism wasn't

disgusting so i'm not suggesting that i

only have a problem with western

imperialists i'm saying imperialist of

all stripes are evil bastards

but before we can say it's evil and

disgusting we must

know uh what actually is

like i reject a romantic position

according to which we can say

something is evil even if it is real

objectively marxist leninist simply say

in a

in a more qualified sense what marxist

leninists are saying is that

from a scale of uh maybe hundreds of

years

imperialism is not even real it is in

the process of being disintegrated

it is a paper tiger in a sense oh

nothing's

well if you don't we don't have to say

it's evil we don't have to say it's bad

it is simply a paper tiger it is simply

will be destroyed melancholy

you can't you can and should say

ultimately the core of the core of what

is attractive about marxism is that it

does away with

the controllable evils of the world

marx would call them bourgeois

socialists marxism distinguished itself

precisely not being what you're talking

about marxism was about materialism

marxism was about materialist dialectic

but i thought you were against

empiricism

materialism and empiricism are two

entirely different things

completely different things completely

completely okay

yeah okay okay i mean i'm gonna need you

to define the

sure sure well this is where i was

coming from actually in my critiques

speaking about 17th century anglo-saxon

metaphysics

i think many marxists when they use the

word materialism actually mean what i

like to call

substantialism they mean to say that the

material object

is already formally predefined somewhere

when in actuality material objectivity

possesses a dialectical relationship

with form

this is why marx's materialism is

dialectical

marx's materialism doesn't say there is

simply a substance

already uh already uh

formally definite and all we're doing is

passively

uh reflecting this form we are act the

the way in which

humanity gives form to the material

content is dialectical

so in in simpler terms

material materialism is about what is

material but what

is the material just straying into the

word solid territory now i'm afraid yeah

it's

listen uh i don't want to be rude here i

don't want to make this rude

but i think you're kind of being

arrogant i think you're just not

familiar with

this more philosophical whatever

approach and just because you're not

familiar with it you're saying it's

meaningless and i think that's an

unjustifiable assumption

if it's not clear to you that is

perfectly understandable and perfectly

reasonable

i think it's really rude that you're

just saying it's completely meaningless

just because you're not familiar with

where i'm coming from

if i was talking to a scholar of

heidegger and if i was talking to

uh these even these people in

universities what i'm saying would be

perfectly

uh understandable but and it's perfectly

understandable to many people

if you're not coming from that

background yourself i can

sympathize with that and i can try to

work with you

but calling it meaningless just because

you're familiar with it

okay but talking down to me being like

well i'm too much of a philosopher for

you to understand but you're calling me

meaningless and i'm trying to work with

you so

instead of saying it's word salad can't

you just ask me to clarify and elaborate

a little bit and

maybe no well no because it's it's it's

three in the morning and

i i think i've let you speak plenty in

this conversation

to be honest and um i i

i think you want to invent new

definitions for words

yeah i'm using words you're not familiar

with and i don't that doesn't mean i'm

creating new dogmas and definitions i'm

just using them in ways you're not

familiar well no not no dogmas no

just your definitions just new

definitions of words to try and get out

so you support things that you claim you

don't support

so you claim to be anti-imperialist but

yet support imperialists

i don't think the definitions are new

whatsoever i think the manner in which

i'm giving expression to the definite

meaning of these words

is just unfamiliar to you which is

completely fine but i think the human

and dialectical approach to

expressing meaning and to knowledge is

that it's an active thing

uh there are no definitions set in stone

pre-inscribed somewhere

human language is something active and

we must constantly

actively give meaning to things in

different ways and actually

i think the ability to describe things

old things in new ways is proof that you

actually know what you're talking about

if you're only using words in ways that

other people have already used them

in the sense of you're not actually

proving you have an independent

understanding of these words you're just

repeating

something else said no but the the point

i would make is not that you're

describing

the same thing that happened in the past

in a new way i'm saying you're

redefining

what a concept is to try and make it

seem like the thing in the past wasn't

the thing that it was

whatever definition you have attributed

to that concept is precisely what i'm

contesting then

i'm contesting that your definition of

that contest

concept can even be assumed in the first

place

well no it's not a matter of assuming

anything it's saying that there are

generations of scholars who have studied

things like fascism

and things like imperialism and that

trying to redefine them so that they're

more convenient for a political agenda

that you've already established

in your mind doesn't get you out of the

fact that you claim to be

anti-imperialist but clearly

supports certain imperialists the

scholars you're talking about

are looking at the phenomena and giving

it expression in their own way

i'm looking at the phenomena and giving

expression in a new way

i don't see why i must agree with i

don't see what makes them

uh holy figures whose definitions

i have to agree with now this this is

accessible

the content of what we're talking about

is accessible to all of us to think

about

independently yeah no absolutely there's

no i'm not suggesting that they're holy

what i'm suggesting is that there are

there have to be

some broad definitions of words in order

for

a conversation to be understood by both

parties right

when i say the word car we know what it

means it's a motorized vehicle

etcetera right sure and so when we're

describing something a bit more complex

like imperialism that's fine

that you have to go into a bit more

detail but i think i did go into pretty

significant detail as to how the soviet

union's interactions with those other

countries was imperialism

and you can say that's fine but what you

can't say is that's fine

and i'm against imperialism no no

i don't have to be against imperialism i

can merely be an anti-imperialist as

someone who bears witness to the

recognition

that imperialism objectively is a paper

tiger

is my point and that's i've been trying

to make that point the second thing

right but that doesn't that's that's

that's business that's contradictory you

can't say

i'm okay with certain imperialism but

i'm not imperialist

that doesn't matter logan when you say

i'm okay we're married

logan logan when when i think maybe we

just think differently when you say i'm

okay or i'm not okay with this

for me when i say am i okay or i'm not

okay with this

i have to also take into account the

concrete and practical sphere of my

intervention in relation to it what does

it mean to be okay

and not be okay with it i have to

understand you could

eyes your wife i'm saying please just

please

do you yeah please let me finish i have

to understand

what power i have over this where i

stand subjectively in relation to this

phenomena in the first place

i don't say i'm not okay with

imperialism i say

this is imperialism here are the forces

of the contradictions internal to it

i recognize in these anti-imperialist

forces the kernel

of the future that is the to me the

meaning of marx scientific socialism

and material is dialogue marx does not

say i'm against capitalism he says in

capitalism i recognize a contradiction

the proletariat in the bourgeoisie

i see in the proletariat the future this

is marx almost his own words

yeah but you're literally i mean you're

saying i'm anti-imperialist but i'm not

anti-imperialism but

an entity doesn't like saying yes

anti-imperialism and

so there's anti-imperialism in the

normative sense of i am against

imperialism here i stand

and there is anti-immigrant in the

objective sense i am giving expression

to the objective

forces of anti-imperialism that exist in

the world which

is just so i'm hoping i'm doing but

maybe but

your definition of what you consider to

be the objective forces of

anti-imperialism

are not anti-imperialist well it's not

first you're just adding a live sense

you can yeah yeah

you can slap the library my sense of

my sense of those forces in the 20th

century is different from yours

for reasons that remain unknown to me

because i've clarified my position and

you

uh just say you rejected which is fine

but

i said the sense of the anti-imperialist

forces that i have

in relation to the 20th century to me is

clear was not themselves uh

maybe from a maoist criticism there's a

social imperialism

i think it's a little wishy-washy a

separate uh type of social imperialism

that was uh emerging is an open question

i think it was more rhetorical and more

impassioned

rejection or surpassing of the old

soviet socialism by mao but

in my view i completely disagree i

disagree that i have to redefine and

have all these mental gymnastics to come

to this simple and sober conclusion

there's no comparison between soviet

uh power soviet power objective power it

is able to exert over other states

there is no unconditional relation

between states and geopolitics it

doesn't mean

that it's the same as western

imperialism

you can use that same basis to try and

basically say that

u.s imperialism is fighting because the

u.s is able to import

impose it so

okay maybe we can make this way more

clear then do you think

that um the yuan dynasty the chinese po

yuan dynasty the mughal empire and the

safavid dynasty the persian safavid

dynasty

and maybe the mongol empire do you

consider those imperialists

yes okay then it's crystal clear why you

would

say the soviet union is imperialist to

me but i just think

that the phenomena of western

imperialism beginning from modernity

onwards into the 20th century

is qualitatively distinct from these

uh these world historical empires

because the the mongol empire

used force yeah to extract at the very

least tribute

and uh soldiers yeah for its further

conquest and sure right those lands

okay which is very much the the race for

africa but in a different part of the

world

completely disagree there's a comparison

to me imperialism begins

western imperialism begins with

liberalism and modernity i can get more

into it if you if you want to know the

reason

well western imperialism but i'm not

suggesting that the the

the the car nights were yeah

they were just imperialism in the modern

sense your notion of soviet union

as imperialist you're saying it's

imperialist more in the pre-modern

sense i'm talking about imperialism in

the modern sense of the word

is what i'm trying to get at mike you

can't say it's pretty modern

all of those nations were industrialized

they used they literally as a tanker you

should know

power yeah but the form of power

relations you're trying to qualify as

imperialism is more aching to the

pre-modern type of

imperialism which is completely is that

why is that any better

that's it's not a question it's better

it's not a question of better or worse

we didn't get into this

moral judgment we just are okay okay

well i'll ask you this pretty simply

then right

is the ancient form of imperialism

okay are you do you support that kind of

imperialism it's arrogant

it's arrogant to say it's okay or it's

not who am i to say it's okay or it's

not okay

what reality that does it possess though

is the real question

okay okay well the same can be said for

the us imperialism i agree

you can't say i agree with you in

judgment

of the blockade of cuba 100 agree with

you and mao's view of the western

imperialism was that it was a paper

tiger

and i agree with that i think i don't

know i was i think i think

the victims of the countries might

disagree with you slightly as to whether

he's a paper tiger or a very actual

tiger but who avenges those victims is

it going to be moralizing people in the

west

saying i think this is wrong or is it

going to be the patriots the freedom

fighters

and the revolutionary soldiers defending

and

uh their country who will reverse all

those okay yeah but that's

that's fine i agree moralizing liberal

americans are not going to avenge the

victims of the drug wars or anything

like that

that's not the point i'm making my point

is if you're okay with

the various different types of

imperialism or

at least you're not prepared to uh sit

in judgment of those other kinds of

imperialism

how can you sit in judgment of american

imperialism i sit in judgment of them

but what is the content of that judgment

i'm analyzing what is happening

the whole pathology of liberalism

rendered in philosophical terms which is

different from materialistic terms but

rendered in philosophical terms

the whole pathology of liberalism is

saying first we decide

what it is we consider good or okay

abstractly completely

against the void against complete

indeterminate reality

and then we superimpose our position

upon reality

it's actually precisely this that i

think distinguishes

modern imperialism from every other type

of empire

uh in history let me tell you

explain something other types of empire

like the mongol empire

after conquest enter into a syncretic

relationship with the conquered and a

dialectic

emerges that gives rise to a completely

new civilization

at no point do they say here i am here i

stand the cartesian i think therefore i

am

and then say uh here i am here i stand

and i simply impose myself

upon everyone else i'll ask you a

very simple series of questions then

right is

american intervention in let's say south

america

good uh good for who

for the people of south america uh

according to them no

and that's why the people of south

america okay we'll triumph

no it's not bad but i do so do you

do you think therefore that um

in the same way that say the contras did

in nicaragua

slaughter people do you think it was

good that um

uh let's say hill farmers in afghanistan

were slaughtered

it was for them it was a horrible thing

horrible thing but

i am not arrogant enough to say i am the

moral agent

that exercises dominion over all of this

phenomena

now once again exercise dominion clearly

you're one person

before i can i'm saying before i can't

sit in judgment of americans

soviet i must be clear

about this fear of my practical

relationship

over the uh phenomena that is being

judged i cannot simply say i think it is

i don't want to be a vain person

i don't simply want to say this is bad i

want to clarify

what is it what i don't i

again i don't want i don't want to be

rude here but considering you've

been going on about how you've destroyed

rash and how you

own him and things sure i don't think

you get to say i'm not a vain person

well okay not being rude but if you look

at my chat right now

and you and you look at how active our

community is i don't think it's vain i

think

you can say i'm punching above my weight

in terms of how big i am oh yeah

you can't flex

together we have the momentum to back it

up i mean i peaked almost

300 viewers just this stream today and

this is not even a heated stream

we have the momentum to back up all

these things

i don't think it's vain i think you've

as as you've pointed out

well no it can be accurate and vain

vanity isn't based on inaccuracy

how would you qualify my vanity though

uh

saying that you're you've destroyed

people and wrecked them and you know

own them yeah is pretty you're basically

kind of trying to flex

if you look pretty much yeah if you look

at the titles i give

it's based on how they've interacted

when they want to play monkey business

and play guerrilla games

that's when i started saying oh yeah i

want to do our story the gorilla thing

what's that about

but if okay i'll get to it when you

watch the xander hall debate he was very

polite

the latter half so i titled the debate

tanki debate xander hall

destiny was kind of polite

he was kind of polite but he was still

you know he was still kind of rude so i

said i defeated him

right he never wanted to engage in a

constructive conversation so to me he

pretty much conceded

vosh wanted to play guerrilla games and

vos got

the beast mode and he was destroyed

socialism done left was the worst one

yet

and he was obliterate sorry well i know

we're gonna be serious this one he was

obliterated you know what i'm saying

but i'm gonna be serious here that's

what happened with him

now unless something changes so far i

think i'll title this view uh

tanki debates kfl logan this was a

debate

i think all right okay but what's the

yeah what's the guerrilla thing about it

so we uploaded a v so this is how the

meme started

so i did an analysis of godzilla versus

king kong like

what the what is going on here what is

the meaning of this

to me and then we got to king kong

analysis of the film

king kong there have been

interpretations not my own

interpretations of the past of king kong

from the 20s movement

representing the proletariat that king

kong represents the kind of

modern condition of the proletariat in

relationship

to society as this kind of beast beast

in relation to society then there's the

anti-colonial

uh narrative the anti-colonial view of

what

the meaning of king kong is is this

encounter between

european uh modern civilization and

pre-pre-modern peoples

who have this similar it's kind of a

chauvinistic in the context of the 20s

view but it's almost as though

they are relating to the shock of

modernity as though

king kong is in new york city how

shocking and disorienting

and so on and so on modern life is

but to me there's a type of tragedy at

the heart of the film

king kong where king kong to me he

represents

a primordial the most primordial kernel

of our own humanity

and the fact that he was under attack by

all those planes and all this stuff

is about how our own modern society

attacks

humanity itself so king kong to me

represents a deeper type of

humanity and that's the whole shtick of

infrared

we believe we are a type of new humanism

we believe in a type of clear

plain spoken spirit of humanity over

what we consider more of an ironic bread

tube type of passive aggression

okay um i i mean it's an interesting

thought i think that maybe is probably a

little bit simpler than that but

i mean it's poetic i'll give you that

okay um i'm just glad it wasn't as some

people were thinking it might be racist

but thankfully it's not no that's good

oh okay good good okay um well it's

like 3 30 in the morning here so i'm

gonna yeah i won't title this uh

destroyed i'll just

title it debate so you know fairness

okay cool man

we disagreed about a lot of things and

it was very difficult to establish

common communication that's clear to me

well if you're curious

and you do want to know more about where

i'm coming from maybe in the future we

can have a longer conversation

but it seems to me there's maybe a

barrier of

uh meaning that's fine that's okay uh

we were very polite and i hope i was

polite and it is what it is

yeah cool um yeah maybe we'll talk

another time

um enjoy uh what's left of your evening