Richard Spencer and Luxury Beliefs

My actual YouTube Channel: @BigJoel

[littlestjoel]

for the record, I think the best critique of liberalism is certainly not that they "Care about giving people fair shakes too much, which is boring, " it's that they don't care nearly enough lol. I'm seeing a surprising amount of agreement with Richard Spencer from the left in the comments, and I don't know. My basic political belief is that giving people "creature comforts, " opportunities to participate in society as equals with sufficient resources, is not boring at all. It's good lol

[hemingshark]

This is the thing about fascism, that the essence of it is purely about aesthetics. Why there's always all that mysticism attached to it, because it has to be the most fringe, most based, most contrarian set of beliefs to pull in these weird losers like richard spencer.

[Huntracony]

Boring is such a weird thing to say against a policy. Like, it's fine if you don't find it interesting, but that's not an argument as to why it's bad. Policies aren't entertainment.

[kingflumph]

I would add people like Gary Vee to this list too. Believing that being poor is somehow better because it gives you "something to struggle for" is the peak of out-of-touch rich fantasy haha.

[Elon.Emeralds]

First you can't change the world until you clean your room, now you can't do it when your life actually is in order. I'm starting to think they just might not want people with any conscience interfering.

[fieuline]

When I think of luxury beliefs, I think of Simone Weil arguing with Simone de Beauvoir. Weil argues that the first priority should be feeding people. Beauvoir argues that the most important thing is for people to have lives with meaning -- to which Weil responds "well I see you've never gone hungry."

Meaning is not a luxury. Thinking that meaning is a higher priority than food, is.

[patb]

The actual tedious thing about Dems’ “giving everyone a fair shake” is them professing this belief but then never enacting any policy which may in fact be called a fair shake

[FlintSparkedStudios]

Struggling with medical bills? How boring.

[thedonut]

This is quite a common belief among at least the more educated of the far-right. I’ve read a decent bit about early fascist intellectuals, the people who provided the inspiration and early support for Mussolini and alike, and they make a variety of different, sometimes contradictory arguments but the common theme is this kind of moral repulsion at happiness, comfort, freedom, and frankly to life itself. Liberals, Marxists, social democrats, anarchists, hell, even conservatives generally share a certain baseline of values. We may disagree widely on how to get there but we all generally want people to be happier, to have access to more opportunities and material comforts, but to fascists this goal is not only unrealistic but inherently horrifying. Suffering, in their eyes, serves a necessary moral and aesthetic purpose (though, of course, they themselves are rarely the ones to suffer).

[garshtoshteles]

it's a luxury belief in the sense that it is impossible to find material equality boring if you are hopelessly poor. only people who have material wealth and continue to feel empty have this particular kind of luxury belief, that our society should be structured around some greater goal rather than decreasing suffering.

[JoshHenderson]

Good politics should be boring. The welfare of the poor is not a glamorous topic that should be bedazzled and paraded around.

[jordank]

Please never forget that he used the term "octaroons" in a racist tirade/breakdown. Do you know how racist you have to be to even have that word occur to you to call people

[mooncalf]

I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I'm poor as shit and not very educated, but I'm old enough to have noticed climate change literally changing the climate over time. I don't "believe" in climate change any more than I "believe" in the Grand Canyon. They are both things that I have seen.

As for liberalism, it does kinda suck. But not for those guy's dumb reasons. It's like he doesn't know that we *literally* are herd animals who cling to each other for warmth. That's how we thrived, and how we still exist here on this planet. Abandoning agrarianism spells doom for the species.

[jamesrule]

Richard demonstrating yet again that he wasn't punched hard enough.

[trumpeterjen]

I would absolutely *love* for politics to be boring. I'd love to have a reliable system with basic politicians who just talk about mundane issues. I hate this tumultuous, dangerous atmosphere. I hate feeling like the world is ending every four years. I hate how my human rights are constantly at stake. Please, PLEASE just give us some normalcy.

[aislynnmari]

Glad to see the classic Goya on the wall again ❤

[titularnobody]

i do not believe that richard spencer would vote for kamala harris

[kylegonewild]

This sure would come off a lot more sincere if Little Joel wasn't friends with Big Joel who as we all know has an estimated net worth in the millions from his wildly successful YouTube channel probably.

[mlloants]

was worried for a second that richard spencer was about to make sense. yeah liberalism is depressing. no dem is worth calling a marxist. the ideology does prioritise comfort and platitudes over meaningful change. just, yknow, all of the rest of what he said and left unsaid. dude thinks the problem with dems is they help people too much.

[Dekubud]

For me, the ultimate belief of privilege/luxury is "everything happens for a reason" (not in the sense of causality but in the sense of "your suffering has a purpose"). I thankfully haven't heard it in a while because I am losing my filter as I gain confidence and I'd end up bringing up genocides, sick children, CSA or/and SA in general.