The U.S. Goverment

[Swarm]

I can't say because I've never been in Mexico. Do you have to join a political party to get a job there?

Yep, and a great deal of the population ( the low tier, poor, or however you wanna call me ) often ¨sell¨their votes or are just forced to vote for said party or president, that's how awesome it is.

Because we are also poor due to the president and Govs literally stealing all the money, i mean, a 12 meter bridge that costed $15 Million Dollars?

It's usually 35-60$ per vote here, how much do you get in there?
And look it on from the bright side, at least you got the bridge. In the Bosnian canton I'm in recently a local crimelord got payed by the officials to steal 100 trucks of sand from a river which he further used for his private projects and sold.

[burgingham]

For pete's sake critical theory is the disease, not the cure. Horkheimer, Marcuse, Adorno and Habermas are intellectual fountainheads of the whole modern malaise of multiculturalism, feminism, environmentalism, deconstruction, post-modernism and every other intellectual disease that plagues modernity. What I want is a return to the traditional pre-war European order of peace, quiet, monarchy and less ideology in general.

And I think Julius Evola would very much resent being called an American Ideologue.

See and this is why I cannot argue with you. Also, you cram so many different theories into one sentence there and claim that's all Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adornos work. For example they would have never approved of the feminist revolution in the form it actually took place, they have not much to do with post-modernity at all. They are completely unideological above that, while your monarchic moods are overflowing with the very same.

How can the critical reflexion of the status quo be a malaise? That is all the critical theory is asking for in its essence and it is meant to be only one thing and that is a cure. Which kind of ideology or non-ideology emerges from the findings one gets by applying the critical theory to research matters which in our case are the entire political, economic and cultural system, is not important, the critical theory is just supplying you with the tools of an unbiased research. What you are asking for is to keep the citizens in a state of immaturity while critical theory seeks to free them of that state in a very Kantian sense of the term. But I guess Kant is just another malaise...

[jorb]

Heh, apologies If I seem overly dismissive. I've studied a lot of humanities at university. I took the classes I took because I had and have a genuine interest in history, philosophy, literature and the history of ideas. I went because I wanted a thorough exposé of the Western Canon, because I wanted to learn meter and verse, and because I wanted to understand the cultural context I exist in. I'm not going to say that my time there was entirely wasted -- I had several professors who did teach those thing -- but I will say that many of my classes were very much plagued by what I perceived to be a more or less mandatory adherence to various forms of marxist, postmodernist and, indeed, critical, theory. I love reading and learning about Homer, but "feminist readings" of Homer do not interest me in the slightest. I find it to be a pseudo-scientific and barren approach to the subject. I found it, indeed, very much tainted by ideology, and an almost pathological need to idly question and criticize long established social mores and conventions of the Western tradition.

Civilization and culture are precious flowers. One ought to be very careful before one decides to prune the branches of such forms of life and existence, because without culture human beings are nothing but savage beasts, as the 20th century in all its barbarity should suffice to illustrate. That particular form of modern barbarity -- of which the French revolution was perhaps the first and most splendidly horrible example -- is often caused precisely by attempts to overthrow, criticize and subvert traditional forms and replace them with desktop construed new moralities or supposedly new ways of life. The attempt to transform the God and King loving peasants of Vendée into republican citoyens ended in mass butcherings. The attempt to replace the traditional culture of Russia with a New Soviet way of life ended in Gulag camps. The attempt to destroy the percievedly authoritarian German monarchy led not to peace but to the appearance on the scene of a far darker lord than the one one had originally set out to get rid of.

How can the critical reflexion of the status quo be a malaise? If criticism does not come from a place of love, and if criticism is not intended to be constructive in some way, then criticism is merely a destructive act of vandalism. I am extremely skeptical of any criticism that does not present an alternative.

And it, by the by, seems pointless to deny that the Institut für Sozialforschung was not Marxist -- i.e. ideological, as opposed to scientific -- institution. Or?

[jorb]

And what you describe as "a state of immaturity" I would consider a unarticulated adherence to the traditionally held beliefs and ideas of ones ancestors, given implicitly to you by the culture you grow up in. You may not always know or be able to formulate the precise intellectual reasons for some of the beliefs you hold, but I don't consider that necessary or in any particular way immature. I consider it an instance of division of labor. Not everyone could nor should be made to rediscover the wheel anew every generation. It is very easy to make an intellectual case for why, say, murder is okay -- communists and nazis excel at that sport -- yet every meme of culture you have ever absorbed tells you that it isn't. Sometimes "because we've always done it that way" is a perfectly sufficient answer as to why something shouldn't change.

And sometimes it isn't.

[burgingham]

Well, there is not much I would disagree with in this post, I am just surprised by the conclusions you draw from all of this. Sure there were bad examples in the past, but I don't see how the development to something bad leads you to the conclusion that the state before has to be the best. To speak with general Petraeus words: "It will get worse before it can get any better."

y. I love reading and learning about Homer, but "feminist readings" of Homer do not interest me in the slightest. I find it to be a pseudo-scientific and barren approach to the subject.

I whole heartedly agree, but that seems to be a specific problem of the university you took your courses at, it is just one possible interpretation of critical theory and not a very good one.

because without culture human beings are nothing but savage beasts, as the 20th century in all its barbarity should suffice to illustrate.

Funny that is an almost 1:1 Adorno quote. Exactly because of the barbaristic behaviour humans showed during the 3rd Reich did the Frankfurt School emerge. To make sure humans reached a maturity which would not let them repeat those horrors. After all they were philosophers in the tradition of the enlightenment. That very school of enlightenment never sought to criticize without also supplying solutions or improvements and I agree with you that criticizing just for the sake of it has no value whatsoever.

One ought to be very careful before one decides to prune the branches of such forms of life and existence

If you do not prune them regularly they will grow to hinder your sight on what's is true and what is beautiful though. That is all critical theory in its very essence is trying to achieve: To create maturity in humans so they can choose and see truth for themselves without idologies or authorities blinding them.

[burgingham]

Not everyone could nor should be made to rediscover the wheel anew every generation.

Sadly I don't have time anymore to answer to that post in detail, but that is a false conclusion you draw from critical theory. It is definitely not what they want. Also I would disagree and say that every human should seek for enlightenment. Division of labor is just another word for slavery.

[Tonkyhonk]

What I want is a return to the traditional pre-war European order of peace, quiet, monarchy and less ideology in general.

like Bhutan?
of course its not european, its asian, but its the closest as in, traditional peace, quiet, monarcy and less ideology.

btw, i never knew there existed such a thing called as "pre-war European order of peace"
to me, europe had always had wars all over in history. (probably because i only know a little of it.)

[spectacle]

btw, i never knew there existed such a thing called as "pre-war European order of peace"
to me, europe had always had wars all over in history. (probably because i only know a little of it.)

There have always been conflicts in Europe, jorb is fantasizing. There was a period of relative peace around the turn of the 19th century, but if you look closer tensions were high between the great powers, and many near-wars were averted with diplomacy until the whole thing inevitably blew up as WWI.

[Potjeh]

Were there ever 50 years of continuous peace in Europe?

[jorb]

btw, i never knew there existed such a thing called as "pre-war European order of peace"
to me, europe had always had wars all over in history. (probably because i only know a little of it.)

There have always been conflicts in Europe, jorb is fantasizing. There was a period of relative peace around the turn of the 19th century, but if you look closer tensions were high between the great powers, and many near-wars were averted with diplomacy until the whole thing inevitably blew up as WWI.

There was a period of almost complete peace in Europe from the end of the Franco-Prussian war to the beginning of world war one. Only the post world war two era beats that record. The concert of Europe lasted from the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and the era was -- by European standards -- extremely peaceful. There were of course wars -- of Italian and German Unification, the Carlist wars in Spain, The Crimean War -- but those conflicts were fought between armies, and not against civilians. They did not disrupt international trade in any major way, and they were relatively short affairs.

Calling the first world war inevitable is of course easy in hindsight, but there was a general perception in Europe around the turn of the century -- after the founding of the red cross and the various international arms restriction conferences that were held at the end of the 19th century -- that the era of major international conflicts was over. A similar perception, indeed, to the one most people seem to entertain today. I am fairly confident that someone will shoot an Arch Duke again at some point.

But, no, I don't think Europe has ever experienced fifty years of complete peace.