/lit/ - Literature

>>19235077
His point about ideology is trivial compared to factors that actually drive people's rational decisionmaking. If a tradition has reason to be kept, even if that reason can't be easily articulated, the new arguments will resemble and thus renew old rationales.
e.g. "trans FREAKS are not real women." This is phrased and conceived very differently from earlier historic iterations, as is necessary in a changing world, but it's a continuation of tradition because it serves the same social need.

>>19235077
For tradition to be valid it should be phrased in the langage of modernity.

Homosexuality is not a sin because Bible an churchfathers say it is, but because the lifestyle leads to diseases, its community members prey on children and the culture undermines the family unit.

>>19235225
The weakness is that an anti-transsexual position would never have had to be rationalised, it's reflexive, automatic and natural. But once the question asked "why not?" and is forced to be answered with rational arguments, the real argument of naturalism/endoxa/tradition that actually sustained the position disappears. It's an effective denuding tactic.

>>19235275
>but because the lifestyle leads to diseases, its community members prey on children and the culture undermines the family unit.
But that's not really why it was opposed in actuality. Endoxa is held because it's endoxa, a respect for tradition, not for rational reasons like that XYZ you gave. Once the battlefield moves to a rational argument the endoxa/trad position has been lured outside its castle and home, you can try to throw new weapons into its hands that it isn't familar with and doesn't really know how to use but is it ever effective?

>>19235280
the argument that it's unnatural disappears? You see the contradiction there. Defeat in an argument couldn't possibly effect that kind of tradition, or prejudice, or whatever you want to call it. As far as disqualifying "unnatural" matters, it seems unfair to traditionalists to exclude things like sexual practice, social hierarchies, and spirituality from the realm of tradition.

>>19235292
Because the argument is made (again, the battlefield has now been shifted to arguments rather than "what did the ancients do?" or "what is the eternal truth?") that human nature is determined by the subject, that we are self-creating beings. We can decide to be whoever we want to be, conditioned and made by ourselves. Or that human nature is historically conditioned, and that with new times come new norms for XYZ argument reasons.

>>19235077
>>conservatives hold position because it's a traditional norm, the wisdom of endoxa made into a positive principle
>because it was tradition, not for rational reasons
Already retroactively refuted by Joseph de Maistre. Not reading more progressive drivel when they refuse to engage with actual opposition.

>>19235308
>again, the battlefield has now been shifted to arguments rather than "what did the ancients do?" or "what is the eternal truth?"
Has it? Or maybe the only battlefield you choose to fight on is one where all genuine higher principles are excluded by default. That is not "shifting the battlefield", it is just conscious myopia.
>that human nature is determined by the subject, that we are self-creating beings.
Is there anyone who can prove this is the case, or even genuinely believes it?

>>19235318
de Maistre is a reactionary, he's reacting to radical arguments, he's not a traditionalist maintaining a tradition because it is received endoxa. He's one of the people lured out by the radicals onto the battlefield of argument to be defeated and have the traditions cast aside (which is what happened).

>>19235077
I'm not gonna pass judgment on the exact mechanism Bauer presents, but the notion that conservatives do literally nothing but lose constantly is plain as day. "Conservative" might as well be a shorthand synonym for "a permanent state of losing".

I'm not kidding, and I am not memeing, and I'm not even trying to be polemical. I'm just expressing the fact that for any conservative of the past 200 years or so, let's call him x, a conservative that came a mere 30 years before x, let's call him y, would consider x to be a total and absolute degenerate liberal.

A conservative of the 1990's would consider a conservative of today, what with the gay marriage and all, to be a total fucking degenerate who has nothing to do with conservatism. A conservative of the 1960's would think the same of the conservative of the 1990's, what with the women's rights and all that shit. A conservative of the 1930's would think a conservative of the 1960's was a total fucking degenerate, what with the civil rights movement even being a thing. Ad nauseam, for as long as conservatism has existed - it has done absolutely nothing but lose.

Conservatism, by nature and mechanism, does nothing but lose. "Progressivism" of whatever sort you like does nothing but win.

>>19235328
>even genuinely believes it?
That's the position of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, Fichte, Hegelians, modern Liberals etc.

Whether naturalness is a rational argument or a direct appeal depends. But if you're making a reasoned argument about XX-XY and the act of sexual reproduction, bums not being made for dicks etc. rather than a mere appeal to the pathos of reflexive disgust or an established rule, then yes you've been lured out onto the battlefield of rational arguments and conceded all the strength of the old argument from endoxa/tradition.

>>19235288
>>19235308
The problem is your assumption that tradition is wrong, and that those rational arguments have no counterpart in the tradition.

Many think the rapidly-growing Russian communist movement was weakened by the use of new reasoning to accomplish new goals that bore no relation to the original idea. Weakened it may have been -- ideologically. However, "communism" marched further under the USSR banner than ever before. It was a victory for the forces of revolution. If the Czar had won and made Russia a grand imperial superpower, even if he made lots of concessions, that would be a victory for tradition.

His point is incomprehensible because all traditions originally had a purpose, and many retain their original purpose, to say nothing of habituation, cultural importance, stability, backwards-compatability etc.. If people no longer feel strongly about the original purpose, rational argument is obviously the best way to advocate for a tradition. If the original purpose is intact, I don't see how a failure of argumentation could ruin it. Alternatively if the argument is good, that only legitimizes the outdated tradition.

>>19235340
I think Bauer explains exactly the how and why of it. Conservatives defend values because the values are endoxa, because that's the way things are it works, so why change it? And then when the values are rationally challanged by a radical, they're drawn out from the castle and onto a battlefield where the they hastly try to put on new armour and weapons of rational defensive arguments and get knocked over like scarecrows.

Tradition isn't sufficient, you need a world-rational system that creates and recreates and can defend its values anew in each era. Otherwise you're a dead system walking.

>>19235329
>de Maistre is a reactionary, he's reacting to radical arguments,
Yeah, you didn't read him.

>>19235340
Laughably false, it only appears true in hindsight because liberals keep getting younger while conservatives stay the same age. Sticking to your guns equates to liability from an image standpoint.

>>19235352
I don't disagree with the ends of your worldview, but as a system within history it's not tenable. Endoxa in itself isn't an argument, it's a reflex, a default position. And when it gets challanged by a argument it can't just pick up rational arguments in the moment to justify itself when the actual living justification is just that it was received knowledge/opinion/tradition. The critical age has came and nothing survives without being justified to the fresh scrutiny of every mind that comes along and is born into the world.

If you want the same ends or values to stick around and be able to defend themselves from challenges you have to be able to formulate a broad rational system that can justify and recreate itself anew in each historical condition it is needed in.

>>19235364
>bad things happen if no tradition
>bad things happened when tradition ignored
>tradition because it's tradition
And you wonder why he and the rest of the reactionaries failed to stop the age of the French revolution and the transvaluation of all values. Why keep losing with shit ideas?

>>19235349
>That's the position of the Renaissance, Enlightenment, Fichte, Hegelians, modern Liberals etc.
Nope. Especially not Hegel himself, but as for "Hegelians", maybe some of them are stupid enough to believe that.
>>19235382
>But if you're making a reasoned argument
"Reasoned arguments" in the domain of ethics can be made in favor of absolutely anything. This is de Maistre's point about the fundamental weakness of all "reasoned arguments" in favor of or against anything. De Maistre's fundamental point, which you would've easily recognized if you ever bothered to read anything you blather about, is that reason cannot be used as a principle of sovereignty or even with respect to any sovereignty. De Maistre rarely "reacts" against any of the Enlightenment "arguments", his point is that the entire apparatus of philosophy, especially political philosophy and ethics, is flawed. "Reasoned argument" is like a wild animal that can either be put to productive use, tilling a field, or to destroy. It has no bearing on truth, justice, and sovereignty in and of themselves.

>>19235077
trad =/= conservative, retard. However, the point about conservatives is true. Evola said the same and therefore advocated radical traditionalism.

>>19235376
but being anti-tranny isn't traditionalist because it's "just gross"? Seems like whenever tradition crosses paths with utility, you want to call it a coincidence. It seems to me just a rhetorical device to turn tradition's monopoly on "values" against it. In practice, the continued existence of values, whether emotionally or historically derived, despite critical reevaluation and scholarly dunk contests, should disprove any idea of arguing them away.

Explain how the discovery of a new, awesome rational argument in favor of a tradition hurts that tradition.

>>19235363
Yes, it makes sense.

>>19235365
>Laughably false
By your post, it seems more like it is seethe-inducing and not disproven.
>it only appears true in hindsight
Yes, by any cursory knowledge of history, it seems overwhelmingly correct, as I said.
>liberals keep getting younger while conservatives stay the same age Sticking to your guns equates to liability from an image standpoint.
I can't even tell what you are trying to say, so I'd appreciate a more direct response.
Answer me directly: what would a conservative of the 1910's think of a conservative today?

>>19235415
>what would a conservative of the 1910's think of a conservative today?
they would bond over how much they hate liberals. Now, a 1910s leftist and a leftist today would come to blows. Your post is moronic but I've said plenty.

>>19235420
You're too dumb to be having this conversation, so I wont waste anymore time after this post.
>they would bond over how much they hate liberals
And the 1910's conservative would come to realize that one shouldn't discriminate against the blacks, that women actually belong in the workforce, etc., because they both dislike liberals? No, you are too stupid, not worth the time or effort.
>Now, a 1910s leftist and a leftist today would come to blows
Or maybe they would bond over their shared hatred of capitalists, by your own, very weak and underdeveloped reasoning, no?
>but I've said plenty.
Agreed.

>>19235415
conservatives still believe in family, masculinity, god, and the state. Those horses have carried them a long way. Insane liberal paganism and flavor of the month crap instead gets to celebrate brief, meaningless victories over and over again in perpetuity.

>>19235436
getting hot under the collar, go fuck yourself crybaby.

>>19235436
plenty of racists in the 1910s were ok with civil rights once blacks were educated to a similar standard, as they truly weren't coming out of slavery. plenty of conservatives in 2020 still want their kids to look like them. Most conservatives in 2020 still aren't positive toward gay shit.

Let's consider the example of gay marriage, an issue conservatives "lost." Did this happen because the tradition of heteronormativity was meaningless? Did engaging in argument reduce its importance? Or did society permit gay marriage because an emotional struggle and clash of values took place?

We know how dogmatic conservatives are, but if rational argument worked on fags and bohemian revolutionaries, their impact on world events would be greatly reduced as well. I find the whole idea of arguments as a significant motivator to be unsupported.

>>19235437
>family
Yes, and now in a family structure where you're allowed to divorce, allowed (and even encouraged) to put elderly parents in a care home, own your own home for two adults + children instead of a large one for your entire family, etc. etc. etc.
>masculinity
What kind? Conservatives tend to think of masculinity as the laconophilic one espoused in "300", but maybe you're thinking more of the Victorian one, where'd you'd hold hand with your male friends and kiss them on the cheek. Be detailed. What is masculinity?
>god
Lowercase here is very naughty. As even passing familiarity with the history of theology will reveal, there tends to be great upheavals in religious ideology. It is not the pillar you believe it to be.
>the state
What does that mean, "believe in the state"?

The words you use are not nearly as determinate as you think they are, and lend no creedence to your argument.

>>19235442
Restrain your emotions. It is one of the cardinal virtues after all.

>>19235460
>plenty of racists in the 1910s were ok with civil rights once blacks were educated to a similar standard, as they truly weren't coming out of slavery.
No. Jim Crow laws weren't even from proper conservatives, and that's half a century after the 1910's.
>Most conservatives in 2020 still aren't positive toward gay shit.
Sure, but they are no longer lynching the homos, now are they? Look to eastern europe for a conservatism that is at an earlier stage of its process of constantly losing for an idea of what 1910's western conservatism would look like today.

>>19235489
>Conservatives tend to think of masculinity as the laconophilic one espoused in "300",
Which is of course profoundly hilarious. The spartan helmet and the Punisher logo are the most common symbols of modern masculinity (in america at least), employed especially by right-wingers, whereas the leftist have abandoned any pretentions to maledom. That conservatives tend to take these examples from popular culture entertainment products as the pinnacle of the eternal virtues of masculinity is so incredibly fucking funny.

>>19235489
By this logic, conservatives conquer the past and make old liberal ideologies their own, and leftists are perennial victims of their own parents and teachers. After all, the past just gets more conservative the further back you go, and we're always at the least conservative time in history. It's ok, you can admit the modern progress narrative is a schizo mess designed to trigger maximum emotional involvement. It's not an ideology at all really.

>jim crow heyday in the 1960s
>lynching homos as common practice
you are a brainlet.

>>19235489
>>19235504
>jerking of over a Trumptard strawman who wears punisher logos
absolutely boiling

>>19235507
>By this logic, conservatives conquer the past and make old liberal ideologies their own
Sure, whatever. Congratulations on conquering the 1800's while the fags get married, the women get divorced, and your kids go queer. Truly a conservative victory, or what?
>After all, the past just gets more conservative the further back you go, and we're always at the least conservative time in history.
Exactly, now you see. Conservatism is for this exact reason constantly losing.
>It's ok, you can admit the modern progress narrative is a schizo mess designed to trigger maximum emotional involvement.
The absolute lack of intelligence in this sentence is how I know you are >>19235442 and >>19235420, but not >>19235437 whom I actually want to talk to. I thought we agreed you had said plenty already.
Now do control your emotions: controlling your emotions does not mean poor attempts at mordacious wit, it means controlling your emotions.

>>19235489
>family
someone (the state) stepped in offering incentives to adopt modern ways
>masculinity
following norms of the day is still advised, this one goes back 100,000 years actually according to science.
>god
still on top, baby. What was your point here?
>the state
you know, an authority. Government, as opposed to anarchy. A chieftan at least, again this idea is on the order of 10k+ in age, well out of recorded history. Certainly a pillar.

>>19235077
>things change
>tradition eventually becomes untenable
The only escape is complete stagnation, and that only lasts until the neighbors notice your presence and conquer you.
The only victory is blocking one change long enough for a better change to obsolete it.
The only satisfaction is being able to say "told you so" after failing to stop a bad change.
Politics isn't a rewarding endeavour.

>>19235507
>conservatives conquer the past
The past is a done deal, it cannot be changed: what benefits does one gain by "conquering" it?
More material for "RETVRN TO TRADITION" twitter accounts with greek statues as a profile pic?

>>19235521
They're all me. Divorce and homosexuality have existed since Moses. If conservatives have been losing all that time, why are we having the same conversation? Not much "progress" has been made, and getting back to ideology it becomes even less.

>>19235528
>what benefits does one gain by "conquering" it?
The inverse of the benefit liberals get by rejecting and denigrating it. A faraway, non-threatening source of support for whatever idea crosses their minds.

>>19235523
>following norms of the day is still advised, this one goes back 100,000 years actually according to science.
So conservatism is following the norms of the day? Just the most facile of all versions of relativism, that is what conservatism is? Jesus, I didn't know conservatives could lose this hard, but by nature (heh), they just keep pushing the envelope.

>>19235532
That souns like cope, much like a progressive "conquering" the past as it contains examples of successful change.

>>19235549
Masculinity is following the masculine norms of the day, lady. It's in the instructions. You wouldn't understand.
>>19235551
>much like a progressive "conquering" the past as it contains examples of successful change.
.......

>>19235549
Conservatism is more of a disposition than a set of beliefs or political program.

>>19235560
as is liberalism . . there are even brain scans to prove it. Liberal bathrooms when?

>>19235557
Alright, so assume you lived in biblical Sodom, and masculinity was about being gay and hating God. This was a conservative pillar of the time.

l m a o

>>19235573
seems like a poor example of a traditional society. Thanks for playing!

>>19235564
I’m pretty skeptical of brain scans proving what some people claim they do. Liberalism has loosely defined political ideals. Conservatism is entirely dependent on present conditions.

no seriously, thanks for playing. I'll catch you troglodytes tomorrow maybe. good stuff

>>19235557
Are you false flagging or genuinely retarded?

>>19235406
I'm saying that the reason for the anti-trans position isn't based on a rational calculation, its a natural or automatic default position. If you have to think of reasons to be anti-trans then you've already exited what being anti-trans really is. And there is the problem, itt's not that traditions can't or don't have rational arguments to support them, but that they are not held for rational reasons, they're because they are endoxa, or come naturally, or automatically. They are given to the rational mind, not determined by the rational mind. And once the radical forces them to become determined by the rational mind, for arguments to be made in their defence because determinate arguments have been made against him, the position has been drawn out of its true home and waylaid.

>Explain how the discovery of a new, awesome rational argument in favor of a tradition hurts that tradition.
Because it means the argument made for the tradition is no longer tradition-as-tradition ("Lycurgus/Jesus said"), it's now either held as a rational argument, tradition-for-rational reasons, or more realistically it gets stuck in a weak median position where a rational argument is affected as the reason for the tradition, but the real reason for holding the belief, the tradition-as-tradition, can no longer be voiced and kept hidden like a dirty secret, emasculated.

Say for example the issue of "hood" kids being zoned/bused to a school. The natural/traditional argument of segregation and childrens welfare can't be made, so a rational argument about "property values" or "good schools" has to be affected. The position is already have defeated by being forced out from it's true home onto a battlefield of rational arguments.

>>19235485
The values were formed as a rational argument of equality, which had been conceded by at least the civil rights era at the latest, if not WW1 & 2 or the Civil War. I agree Bauer is neglecting emotion/sentiment and is too logocentric, but I do think the rational lays the groundwork for the emotion to flow out on.

>>19235609
Morality as the rationalization that gives innate feelings a solid foundation is not a new concept, "traditionalism is about following your gut without thinking too much" sounds like an elaborate parody or a quote from 40k.
>the issue of "hood" kids
This is 4chan, you can say "black".

>>19235489
Kek, very well done. Rational arguments force positions held automatically (or "immediately" in Hegelian jargon) as endoxa/tradition to become determinate rational counter-arguments, which takes them out of their true home as received/given endoxa.

>>19235577
>seems like a poor example of a traditional society
Very much so - indeed, that is the point of a modus tollens argument. A very poor example of a traditional society, but nonetheless one that qualifies for traditional, conservative masculinity since this, according to whatever faggot I am responding to, is acting in accordance with the mores of time and place.

Hence, in some cases, traditional, conservative masculinity is about buttfucking, if those are the mores of your time and place.

This is part of the reason I reject conservatism: I am heterosexual to a fault. I cannot accept an ideology that might tell me that I *have* to get buttfucked in order to be a real masculine masculinity man, just because the mores of my time say so. I fear for the poor conservatives who say masculinity is following the masculine norms of the day, for the way society is heading in some places, that surely means dying their hair neon-colors and calling themselves queers.

>>19235519
You're missing the point. It's much easier to hold masculinity as a position when masculinity is held as a natural sense or something given, once it is rationally challenged and forced to become consciously determinate it becomes much harder to define and defend with rational counter-arguments. Because no one really thinks "I want to be masculine for XYZ reasons, here is my transcendental deducation of maleness", masculinity is given as endoxa and sensed and felt non-rationally by deeper faculties. Once you have to defend it from rational challenge with rational arguments you're fighting on alien ground. It can be done, but rational reasons are not why people in actuality value masculinity.

>>19235528
No I think the solution is becoming eternally creative and forever regrounding and remaking the world, either on Hegelian terms like Bauer, or a Deleuzian or other process philosophy model of immanent creativity. You either burn with the fire of Heraclitus or you get extinguished.

>>19235560
A losing one.

>>19235393
Traditionalism is worse than conservatism. Conservatives can at least say they apply the brakes and slow down the pace of radical challengers. Traditionalism is dead by design, it's a doormat compared to Conservatives door that can withstand a few kicks before collapsing in.

Relying on tradition-as-tradition is the problem. The concept or belief in tradition can no longer carry or motivate people. Brains can not be switched off to an argument made against a tradition.

>>19235622
Most actual morality in-situ is received endoxa or "common sense" in the proper meaning of a sentiment shared by a group. It's not rationally formed in thought, it's given to the mind either from within or without.

>>19235681
>replies without reading
At least you're being consistent with your belief that encountering opposing arguments weakens yours.

>>19235687
>as the rationalization of
It's not rationalised, that's the point. Most actual morality is pre-rational, arational. There is no process of rationalisation in the actual holding of most moral beliefs.

>>19235077
>is there any escape from this?
Restrict the public expression of radicalism to a more controlled context

>>19235077
There's no such thing as rationality or reason.

>>19235693
>doesn't understand the difference between rational and rationalization
Are you actually illiterate?
Let's try to walk you through this: you liking pizza is an innate and pre-rational feeling, you coming up with possible reasons to explain why you like pizza is a rationalization, you deciding what food to try next based on those reasons is rational.

>>19235698
Well Bauer did move to the right after Prussia crushed the 1848 revolution. His brother even spied on their old friend Marx as a police informant.

>>19235670
Nice strawman. You think tradition means something along the lines of custom. They are not the same. Traditionalism does not mean clinging on to superficial traditions for the sake of tradition.

>>19235725
>hehe, I have defined traditionalism to be my personal brand of it, so if your usage conforms to the dictionary and common parlance instead of my private language, you are strawmanning
So this is the power of Evolafags.... very mysterious..... holy..... the tiger....... I can see him riding its cock.......

>>19235609
So care should be taken to have a comprehensive record laying out exactly the rational underpinning of the endoxa; they ARE ultimately rationally superior to radicalism, radicalism is just misappreciating the "just take this as given" quality of endoxa as evidence that they're arbitrary and groundless justifications of some kind of oppression, rather than what they really are: intellectual time-saving. Thus >>19235698 is justified in that any given radical can go to the imperial / canonical archives and interrogate traditionalism if they really want to, but should be prohibited from flamboyantly owning endoxa-reliant "common" conservatism in the streets and thereby misleading onlookers into believing that the latter's entire philosophy is ill conceived

>>19235737
Why are you such a faggot?

>>19235340

>>19235698
>stagnate your society as your adversaries keep growing in strength
>eventually lose it all
>at least you owned the libs

>>19235725
>no true tradition
At least name your idea of tradition, otherwise you're just a vagueposting faggot.

>>19235740
>they ARE ultimately rationally superior to radicalism, radicalism is just misappreciating the "just take this as given" quality of endoxa as evidence that they're arbitrary and groundless justifications of some kind of oppression, rather than what they really are: intellectual time-saving
Holy brainlet.

>>19235746
What?
>>19235747
Why?

>>19235717
Is this ESL insecurity? You've described a process of rationalisation, the act of rational thought, which I am saying does not occur, and if it were to occur, displaces the position onto a weaker footing.

Your example is bad on several counts. First it's transposed to something different, not contained to the position itself. Non-rational like of pizza -> rational like of not-pizza. You're not rationalising the non-rational like of the same object, your non-rational like of pizza is not transformed into a rational like of pizza.

Second it's different in kind, an actual non-rational like of a food -> rational *potential* like of a food. If you did find that you actually liked the second food you wouldn't like it for rational reasons, the like-qua-like is non-rational, as the like-qua-like of the pizza is non-rational. At no stage is any actual 'like' for rational reasons. There is no deontology of taste, it remains non-rational sentiment and any attempt to make it rational dooms it.

>>19235746
>My principles are only those that, before the French Revolution, every well-born person considered sane and normal.

>>19235758
>rationalisation is the same thing as rational thought
>n-no stop making fun of me! you're ESL!
Lmao, you didn't even follow through a babby-tier example, and are repeating what I said as a "counterargument".
>At no stage is any actual "like" for rational reasons.
Exactly, that's the whole point.
Now go back and read again, slowly.

>>19235740
Yes your right...but the problem: it can't be mere apologetics or adding strings to a dead corpse and calling the puppet a living thing. It has to be a real and ongoing recreation of values as they exist in the present, that can and is always recreated as the present changes. It has to always be grounded in, and deduced from, the concrete present, not abstractions. Concrete historicism.

It's more than care, it's a systematic difference. It's not just giving universal traditions an update, it's making and remaking them to the actual conditions of the present so they are always grounded in what is actual at every moment.

You may end up with very similar results, but it can't be zombie apologetics for timeless transcendent universals.

>>19235746
Keeping out things like lgbt filth, cosmopolitanism and 'diversity' isnt stagnation, and most of our adversaries do just that and it only makes them stronger.

>>19235770
Mate, no. Make better quality posts. Rationalisation is literally an act of rational thought. You used it correctly to describe a rational process.

>>19235794
Except none of those things are achieved and traditionalism stands mute as minds listen to the only people in the room making arguments?

Conservatism at least affects a rational counter-argument. Bauer shows why it's flawed, but staying mute is an automatic concession that gives any rational argument a default win, does it not?

>>19235796
Open any dictionary, and post its definition of the word 'rationalization".

>>19235794
>all change is this stuff I don't like
>"our" adversaries are totally getting stronger because of that
Hi Chang

>>19235812
>Having a 99% homogenous state is worse than a diverse nation ripe for balkanization because.... uh it just is trust me

>>19235821
>change actually doesn't mean change, it means this specific position
Riddle me this, Chang: if you don't like the results of modern liberal politics, are you perhaps going to try and CHANGE things?

>>19235963
Are you trying to imply that he should just accept what is happening then?

>>19235975
I am saying the exact opposite: the only way out is through change, fantasies of stagnation like >>19235698 are unsustainable and will be turned against you.

>>19235996
If you read the rest of what I said >>19235740 I'm not really arguing for a "fantasy of stagnation", rather that change needs to be well-founded and not just for its own sake

>tradition is always irrational because . . . it just is, ok?
>the true reasons people defend tradition are exclusively irrational, did I mention I'm a leftist?
>when rationality and tradition agree, this negatively impacts tradition
>you cannot refute this (it's tautological)

The gall of this fucking retard

>>19235602
Just grow up and accept you got BTFO with a little grace.

>>19235648
Preposterous. Replace "masculinity" with "free will" and you see how untenable this is. People have used rational terms to describe every feeling and phenomenon for centuries. Bauer's point is revealed to be nothing more than braying at uneducated rank-and-file traditionalists for not needing or using long-established rationales. Any unchallenged ideology sheds the rational war apparatus, becoming pure feeling, e.g. the "religious" political thought of North Korea. So, this is first and foremost an attack on people too numerous and too complacent for the writer's liking. The argument itself has no merit because intellectuals of both sides still read centuries of philosophy and possess rational blueprints for society itself, underpinning traditions and cultural interpretations of phenomena on both sides. Nothing in this thread supports the contention that liberals are more capable of rationality, or that they gain more than a momentary advantage after releasing their carefully crafted arguments on mum and dad.

>>19235602
I see, you are a tranny. You meant masculinity is ONLY norms. You interpreted my post as saying masculinity is only norms. There is also a little-known, almost forgotten biological aspect. When I refer to following norms, I speak of the self-effacement implicit in masculinity, the subversion of self necessary to work as a team. So norms and fads in the 1800s are no threat to masculinity today, yet there's a hard core of shared experience connecting the two. Liberal values are no less derived from real experience, though they fluctuate more wildly.

Trads never lose ya dingus!

>>19236754
>>19237290
Ah, I see, you were baiting all along.

>>19237359
filtered

>>19235783
when real and ongoing recreation of tradition occurs, you term it "human nature"

>>19235681
this is favorable to radicalism how?

>>19237359
it wasn't clear which half of >>19235557 was being referenced in >>19235602 so I posted responses to both possibilities.

>>19237425
Because when the positions are rationally challenged by the radical it means they can't bring their non-rational causes for the position to the debate. The positions can't be easily defended rationally because they were never adopted for rational reasons by the person. The radical confronts them with a rational argument and forces them to come up with new determinate rational counter-arguments to defend the position. In doing so the real non-rational reasons the person holds the position, which are not in actuality the new counter-argumentshe was forced to take up to defend the position, are lost or obscured.

Think of something trivial you automatically do in your life without much thought and then imagine having someone pushily asking why do you do X when you should be doing Y beacuse of ABC reasons. In truth you're not really sure why you do X and don't have easy rational reasons on hand to defend it, and if you do think about it and come up with some reasons for doing X, those reasons aren't actually why you did X because you never did X as the result of a rationally thought out decision you had with yourself.

>>19236744
Missed the point. Tradition-as-tradition is not held as a result of a the end of a rational thought process by a person for any particular position. Tradition-as-tradition is held because it is given as a tradition by some past fact. When a position is rationally challenged the tradition needs to invent new rational reasons for why it is held, but those rational reasons are not the reasons why the tradition was held by the person, the real reason was the respect for the tradition as a tradition.

It's not saying there are not, or were not, good rational reasons for the tradition, but that any particular tradition is not held in the present because it is rational but because it is a tradition. When challenged rationally it's drawn outside its true home and forced to wear new clothes.

>>19237215
Is that not hubris? Have you followed the course of history since the French revolution? Bauer is making his argument against Prussian aristocratic privileges and monarchy, do either of those exist any more? Did he not get his German republic?

North Korea isn't a traditional state, they have a vanguard communist party that enforces a new state ideology of juche, that purports to be a scientific socialism, not an ancient tradition respected as tradition. They force themselves to continually undergo indocrination and reeducation in the arguments of their ideology.

I don't think the capacity for a few to switch their brains off and choose not to submit tradition to their own critical review amounts to much. Most people can't just switch their brains off. When confronted with a rational argument on a particular issue they will need a rational counter argument to defend that position to justify to themselves why they should keep holding the position under challenge. Turning mute and telling your brain to turn mute too is not a real counter. Tradition for traditions sake on a particular issue is dead on arrival, it's Jesus staying mute before Pilate and Herod and then being lead to the cross.

>>19238728
>Because when the positions are rationally challenged by the radical it means they can't bring their non-rational causes for the position to the debate. The positions can't be easily defended rationally because they were never adopted for rational reasons by the person. The radical confronts them with a rational argument and forces them to come up with new determinate rational counter-arguments to defend the position. In doing so the real non-rational reasons the person holds the position, which are not in actuality the new counter-argumentshe was forced to take up to defend the position, are lost or obscured.
This is true, and it is why the only way for tradition to defend itself from the assault of radicalism is not to move onto the terrain of rationality when challenged but to unmask the pre-rational reasons that make an individual adopt radical ideologies: the only sensible defense of tradition is to post basedjack memes.

>>19235077
But the thing is that the Rational is traditional and tradition itself. Hegel affirmed that the State is Reason, no? The culture and institutions which determine a community, a people, are based on the very epistemological unity. If Tradition is to be justified it will be on account of Reason, and if Reason, on account of itself, meaning in the end just an axiom of power.

>>19235077
As unifying social norms, codes, mores, ect. dissolve, society becomes increasingly schizoprenic, unstable, and divided. Eventually, when the society's technical and institutional inertia can no longer keep it together, it collapses. Out of this chaos, strongmen rise, instituting their values through force, and restoring order. The cycle then repeats.

>>19238920
>unmask the pre-rational reasons that make an individual adopt radical ideologies
Good point. As a category I think its a rational attack at the oppositions pre-rational motivations to deligitimise them as irrational and pathological. "The Authoritarian Personality" and "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" come to mind as attacks from the left on the right are in that vein. The right had some successes countering, especially against Soviet types during the Cold War, but not as systematic.

>>19238990
>If Tradition is to be justified it will be on account of Reason
The "if" is the problem, because tradition-as-tradition is not held because of reason, its held because of respect and deference for traditions sake. An argument within tradition might be between Lycurgus and Draco, or the Code of Justinian and Sharia. Having a tradition be challenged by reason and forced to justify itself in rational terms places it outside itself, where in historical practice it usually fails because reason is not why tradition is actually held in respect by people.

>>19239037
But what unities the various strongman together as a strongmen group? How does a strongman rise above rabblerouser or bandit and unify a group to become a world-historic epoch maker? At best you're just kicking the can down the road, and more realistically you're describing why movements fail: lacking to create a world-rational system that can determine and defend their values anew.

>>19235340
I think it would be best to define what is even meant by "conservative."

For example, if we look at the Whig Party (US) on Wikipedia there are two remarks:

>The Whigs themselves adopted the word "conservative", which they associated with "'law and order', social caution, and moral restraint".

That seems like something that is prevalent today and has been in practice for quite a long time.

Followed by:

>Political scientists John H. Aldrich and John D. Griffin note that the labeling of Whig ideology as conservative is "somewhat [counterintuitive] for those who associate a small role for government rather than a pro-business orientation with conservatism".

Notice the phrasing of "counterintuitive" is taking into consideration CONTEMPORARY definition and not the one the Whigs themselves used.

So, what is even meant? Since clearly the one word reflects different ideas.

>>19235308
>that human nature is determined by the subject, that we are self-creating beings
The issue is who or what or how the subject is. This is unclear in Hegel and inadequate in Marx. I think this is where "critical" "materialism" or "rationalism" usually defeats itself, cannot realize its own aim.

The juxtaposition of endoxa with critique I can't imagine as absolute in the way you portray it. I would agree that
>His point is incomprehensible because all traditions originally had a purpose, and many retain their original purpose
since...what we both agree on, the freedom and self-creating nature of human being. The view that this is achieved ex nihilo and retrojected as a realization of the possibility of human being I reject because I don't believe the subject is somehow already "absolute negativity" and at the same time simply human. There is no actual dialectic possible in these terms, because it misses the realization that the subject as human is incomplete, characterizing it as "domination" or "transcendence", which it a priori sets against the "material" or "rational" stance.

To return to endoxa, I can't imagine any historical situation completely constituted by arational, "mechanical" reflexes. As for the "critical age", it seems always and never at hand. You need more specificity. Setting yourself up against any "tradition" seems as self-defeating as above. It's another necessity of "critique" that proves to be embarassingly one-sided. Two homogeneous forces, "tradition" and "critique", do not make history. You're not even aware seemingly of the instrumentalization of "progressive" causes like lgbtq+++, unrestricted immigration, etc. by "traditional", elite interests.

>>19239290
>The issue is who or what or how the subject is.
For Bauer, contra Marx and Hegel, the subject was the individual, but against Stirner the indvidual is actualised by an objective though immanent and self-creative reason, not mere decision. I agree the 19th century framework is inadequate, but the individual as subject is close to the contemporary liberal worldview, and Bauer's tactics have explanatory power for how and why the left-liberal critique produces results.

Point taken about it not being the only force in world history. But where left-liberal critque has taken on traditional endoxa in the post WW2 era it appears to have more or less the same tactics and successes as 18th-19th century radicalism did against aristocracy and monarchy.

The question of why left-liberals take radical positions against "normal" facets of life that on a surface level appear to harm their causes and make them loathed is explained by Bauer's tactic of forcing a radical contradiction that blasts tradition out of its endoxa castle to be defended and then defeated rationally. If left-liberals were to take a softly-softly go-slow approach they would never force the tradition to go beyond endoxa, people would be content to shrug their shoulders and rely on endoxa/tradition. But staking a radical and aggressive confrontation they can now force any issue no matter how "normal" or routine and unthinking the endoxa is; today the prevention of child eunuchs has to be rationally defended (where of course the defence is losing).

I think your critique of the foundations of Bauer's (and the liberal) critique as caught between the ideal subject and the material human are correct and a good place to construct a counter system. The problem is counter-systems haven't been ventured by the would-be remakers and defenders, rather as conservatives they get picked off endoxa by endoxa.

By critical age I mean that people now need rational arguments to hold or defend a position, appeals to tradition, or endoxa, no longer satisfy them, and because of this every part of life not justified by a grand rational system is vunerable to the next left-lib critique.

>>19238728
>>19238920
>the average person's lack of higher reasoning about their daily life is the same as no higher reason existing
How can you be this dense? Communists explicitly have a vanguard party because the average person doesn't have time for argumentation at the highest levels.

>>19239219
Tradition does not fail because it is somehow unfit for rational defense. The radical draws their positions from emotional irrational roots, too, this is incredibly obvious. The liberalization of society in the modern era is entirely a result of bourgeois sentiments being propagated successfully by people who already favored those sentiments, those being merchants, urbanites, capitalists and ultimately liberated women: and then the fact that there was room to expand in that direction, due to societal surplus that allowed most directly for the maintenance of a restive intellectual class, but also for expensive and disruptive societal reforms to be afforded and realized. Liberalization could never happen in the early feudal system as the necessary institutions were missing; feudalism urbanized and mercantilized, and therefore enabled its own downfall. Also, intellectual traditions (such as the English Catholics) opened up avenues of attack against themselves, rendering themselves indefensible through internal contradiction, not because they were intrinsically indefensible. These are the mechanisms of failure for any tradition, as they always apply specific to the local culture.
The matter is terminally confused in the American backdrop, because this society is a masonic colonist arch-liberal state, where even conservatives are only conserving liberalism and social atomization. Any tradition founded upon the American Constitution - an Anglo-Liberal document - will face the pressures of ever-expanding emancipation leading to destroyed cultural boundaries. Then, emancipation expends cultural and moral capital for improved economic potential, which is reinvested in perpetuating emancipation. This has happened on a global level thanks to Western dominance and Anglo-Liberal hegemony, first by Brits then Americans. Anyhow, American society is fated to progressive decay due to its historical predicates. It cannot be otherwise. But that is not because of Bauer's particular categorical understanding.
Conversely the modern Turkish Republic had a strong liberal-nationalist and secular start, but the foundation of the Turkish nation being the Ottoman Caliphate, reaction eventually succeeded against the conservative institution of the military, even if military coups caused liberal setbacks several times. Lebanon had a strong Franco-republican start, but thanks to the brinksmanship in the region they devolved; secular Arab nationalism has thoroughly failed, in fact, now the greatest liberal threat to Islam is in the Arab states where oil-sheikh technocrats rule with disregard to the Ummah. Japan and India have trended contra-radical as well.

>>19239463
Not the point. They don't have to be high-level arguments, most are and will remain slogans. They have to be rationally conceived and justified, not appeals to endoxa or tradition.
>we do X because we always do X
>we should do Y because equality/freedom

Lenin telling factory dumb-dumbs that that are exploited by the factory owners and to regain justice they are going to "expropriate the expropriators" is a rational slogan any factory worker could understand. They didn't have to read Das Kapital to understand and internalise the rational arguments.

>>19238871
>Is that not hubris? Have you followed the course of history since the French revolution? Bauer is making his argument against Prussian aristocratic privileges and monarchy, do either of those exist any more? Did he not get his German republic?
This is drivel, go to bed.
>North Korea isn't a traditional state, they have a vanguard communist party that enforces a new state ideology of juche, that purports to be a scientific socialism, not an ancient tradition respected as tradition.
that was my point
>I don't think the capacity for a few to switch their brains off and choose not to submit tradition to their own critical review amounts to much. Most people can't just switch their brains off. When confronted with a rational argument on a particular issue they will need a rational counter argument to defend that position to justify to themselves why they should keep holding the position under challenge. Turning mute and telling your brain to turn mute too is not a real counter. Tradition for traditions sake on a particular issue is dead on arrival, it's Jesus staying mute before Pilate and Herod and then being lead to the cross.
people aren't mute, they adopt rational arguments. You say that "doesn't work" for conservatives because all conservative positions are irrational. Yet you also recognized liberal morality is equally derived from irrational feelings, so that's not how they differ. If anything, liberals have an edge because of more time spent rationalizing and performing bourgeois sophistry around their core beliefs.

>>19239512
how is personal benefit not endoxa?

>>19239512
> because freedom
wow look, an appeal to emotion

>>19239474
>Tradition does not fail because it is somehow unfit for rational defense.
It is by essence. Without the reverence and mystery, the default acceptance of the givenness of tradition-as-tradtion, it loses what in essence it is. To rationally defend a particular tradition is to attempt to reconstruct it from the ground up, the attempt usually isn't as grand as the mystery and giveness was.

The radicals "real" motivations aren't as important as his tactics. Their particular successes don't depend on their overall coherence, although perhaps those are points of counter-attack. Give me some time and I'll go though the rest of your post.

>>19239219
What I tried to convey in the end was that yes, tradition is held because of reason and reason because of tradition, one establishes the other. By reason you should understand first that reduction in the phenomenological sense from the flux of phenomena, from the flux of unconsciousness attaining stability, attaining consciousness and thus the development of reason.
As these posts >>19239199 and >>19238920 uncover, there lies a non-rational force in the establishment of a community and tradition, the reason that justifies it is its natural development (as the community advances and prospers, reason develops, the forms, understandings develop).

>>19239519
You're missing the point. Conservative positions are justifed, in actuality, by immeadite appeal to endoxa and tradition. Radical positions are justified by reason, regardless of whether the premises are irrational or arbitary. Here lies the tactical clash.

Whether it's "really right" reason or sophistry is irrelevant. It's a question of what grounds a world-view or system, and whether it can defend itself to its members minds, not the truth of that world-view or system. Resting on an appeal to endoxa is weak, and cobbling together half-hearted rational defences to endoxa positions as they come under attack is a deliberate tactic of the radical to force the comservative into a losing battle.

>>19239555
Do you autistically recapitulate the value of freedom whenever you have an argument? The radical is nothing without his rhetorical shorthands. And neither is the traditionalist actually required to recapitulate the value of faith or country or so forth. Rational argumentation favors the radical in a society where the prevailing values already favor the radical. Otherwise, you get Afghanistan or any of the illiberal democracies of this world.
The situation in English societies for the past few-hundred years looks like you describe; the conservative tries to dig deeper and deeper to reconstruct the value of their core beliefs, but this is futile, the disagreement only arises because their enemies do not hold to even the core premises of the conservative. Meanwhile every conservative agrees with the value of freedom to some extent, and post-Enlightenment society holds rationalism to be valuable in itself. This behaviour is a symptom of already having lost, do not confuse this for a mechanistic explanation, or Bauer's stance as anything more than vain polemic. In fact you might note that Prussia did not fall because the traditionalist system failed to integrate and suppress the radicals, they precisely succeeded; it fell because it was shattered through military means.
Then there is the fact that rationalism and objectivity in the Enlightenment *tradition* is a core value all of its own.

>>19239583
The value of reason is endoxic.

>114 posts and fucking no one gets it
Just actually hold beliefs. That's it. Don't just believe something because it's tradition, or pee pee, or poo poo, or whatever. You can live in a society where monogamy is tradition and believe that monogamy is good (or at the least is the least disastrous of several options) for reasons other than "it's tradition".

>>19239529
Missed the point. The form of the argument is the issue, not the truth of it.

>>19239519
Because it doesn't rest on an appeal to endoxa. Self-interest is self-rewarding. The moral lesson is taught in hunger, warmth, childhood toys, envy etc.

>>19239600
Yes, but I think you need a grander system that produces, and in turn justifies, the values you want for yourself, society/state, and the world. Piece-meal reasons ungrounded is a grand system will still be vunerable.

>>19239606
The form of the argument is not something a traditionalist couldn't imitate. Replace "freedom" with any traditional value for any given society as per >>19239597, and the unbiased truth-value of the statement would be identical. How hard is this to grasp?

>>19239555
>>19239580
I'll complement a bit further: the establishment of a community/culture/tradition is a unitive force, that is, it unites people and fixes the idea of unity. Unity: fixed idea of the community itself, thus the individuals that constitute it are also fixed: fixed idea of Self, of I. This is Reason, Consciousness. This is the idea of the Platonic idea of Unity which is ontological, epistemological and axiological.
That was my point: Tradition, State, Community ARE Reason itself. But likewise, it is not reason that convinces, it was not reason the motive of the establishment of a community, but Force, Power. If we want to have a decision based on reason, it will be always on the side of the tradition, but if we want to find the very reason of that reason, it will be war, force, power—the hidden reality.

>>19239421
I'm actually not too familiar with Bauer himself, I was just responding to your posts and some recent writings by Ray Brassier.

I think there is a major difference between the radicalism against aristocracy and monarchy and that post-war. We can just look at their respective effects. The post-war "radicalism" is successful where its goals align with power. Power did not learn nothing throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. So I think you have it precisely backwards, and I see no evidence from the people engaged in successful radicalism today that they are motivated by any deeper strategy of strengthening contradictions by promoting child eunuchs. They, the ground troops, are straightforwardly moralistic and unreflexive in doing this. The motive force is supplied by elite interests for the most part. Notice economic, class or deep-political contradictions are never strengthened, while endless culture-war issues are.

Sure, appeals to a certain tradition are not really effective anymore, this occurs throughout history. I don't see this as a sign of our critical age. A sign I would recognize would be building on Hegel-Marx and the early-mid 20th century revolution of consciousness, rediscovery of the ancients and non-western forms of consciousness/life etc. Billionaires feeding decomposing scraps of "theory" to rabble who moralize about child eunuchs means nothing to me.

>>19239630
Absolutely, but the general point in OP is that any system of defense (rhetorical or something physical like an army or vanguard elite) of some thing based purely on "it's tradition" is not going to be up to the task of defending that thing from some kind of hostile force. Such systems of defense are instead supposed to keep deference to that thing and ensure the power of those who cling to it, not actually defend it.

The solution then is to have your tradition, but also have a constant sense of having to actively argue in favor of this thing against alternatives.

>>19235077
>Is there any escape from this?
Yes, stop being a Christcuck and BoomerCon and become truly futuristic and revolutionary in your mindset

The only thing that can save the Right is Nietzsche, all else is folly

>>19239673
christianity is revolutionary

>>19239682
i'll take carlyle instead. nietzsche is a little too faggy for me

>>19239597
>Do you autistically recapitulate the value of freedom whenever you have an argument?
The 18th and 19th century radicals did, all their arguments begin with it. Once they won and freedom was accepted as a premise by all, as you point out, they no longer had to and stopped because it became a given. But whenever endoxa is challenged it comes back up: the freedom to express a gender identity, the freedom to marry a person of your choosing etc.

The problem is not having a grand counter system grounded in the concepts of reason (and even freedom) and instead retreating to reactionary endoxa that gets picked off one by one.

It's completely self-defeating to think of reason as a tradtion amongst other traditions you can pick and choose from. Reason is a special form of argument to minds self-aware of their nature. If you can't ground and frame your arguments within it you've already lost.

Your historical examples miss the development of German politics, accomldation and confrontations. The Prussian state had to constantly aggrandise liberal and socialist tendancies and recreate itself to survive.

>The value of reason is endoxic
Much more than that, unless you make people illiterate and their brains dumb it won't leave the human subject. Its self-conscious of problem-solving, the latter being something apes and other animals have. Not a clock that turns back.

>>19239683
Yeah, it had its slave revolt and it lead to Marxism and now Marxism is carrying the torch of leftist revolutionary action

>>19239716
marxism died with the soviet union
join the 21st century
christianity lead to monarchy btw
the anti-catholic french revolution lead to marxism

>>19239716
Marxism is dead everywhere outside of China, the torch of leftist revolutionary action in the rest of the world advances corporate managerial interests

>>19239716
>The Age of Christianity, aka Middle Ages, was monarchical
>then after years of humanism comes secularism, materialism, scientism and Marxism emerges.

I have the impression you're quite dumb.

>>19239797
I have the impression your mind is minced if you think the west began with the Middle Ages

>>19239810
You didn't understand my post, but now I no longer have only an impression.

>>19239701
The liberal revolutions were not won off of prefaces to scholarly treatises, they were won off of slogans and moralizing statements like "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality" and "We hold these truths to be self evident"... the American Revolutionaries outright lied and exaggerated through copious amounts of yellow press to stoke actual popular support for their side. Are you trolling?
You know that Catholicism also had an esoteric body of self-consistent theology, right? Their slogans didn't stop working because they had no underpinning to fall back to. The early-modern-middle-class simply abandoned the premises underpinning the premodern worldview, and therefore no deeper appeal was convincing either. That process started in Germany and England and Italy in the 15th century, for material and political reasons, before any whispers of Enlightenment rhetoric had come about.
Irrational factors spawned rationalism, a primordial reflection of the fact that reason only operates on irrational principles.
>The problem is not having a grand counter system grounded in the concepts of reason (and even freedom) and instead retreating to reactionary endoxa that gets picked off one by one.
Do they? The culture that spawned rationalism was overtaken by rationalism. But you may note that many societies operate off of more indigenous paradigms with no consideration for your premises on a deeper level. Again, your perspective reinforces the mechanistic understanding I've presented, not Bauer's.
Reason is not a tradition, it is a tool of rhetoric; rationalism which elevates reason above other sources of knowledge and authority, this is explicitly a tradition in any coherent meaning of the term. You, yourself, have characterized the emergence of rationalism over time and its acculturation in society; you claim this transformation inevitable and objectively true. Just like everyone else, as it turns out. It was very obviously subject to a particular set of cultural and material conditions.
>self-defeating
Why is it self defeating?
You do realise that by considering reason as anything less than an all-encompassing absolute point of moral authority, it becomes drastically less important? And reverts to being one tool among others.
Are the Taliban self-defeating?

>Much more than that
Justify this without circular appeals back to individualism or rationalism. But in any case, if you were correct, wouldn't that be the ultimate endoxa?
>Not a clock that turns back.
Complex societies can collapse; the more complex the more resounding the consequences. The Myth of Progress is the arch-falsehood of the modern age.
What happens if the overwrought global economy fails, and urban centers and modern governance are undermined? What will be the fate of the public schools, then?

bauer bump

>>19235077
>defence falls flat because the position was justified by positivism, because it was tradition, not for rational reasons
Bullshit. Conservatives, not liberals, have a premium on rationality.

>>19235352
>His point is incomprehensible because all traditions originally had a purpose, and many retain their original purpose
this

>>19239583
Tradition is itself governed by rationality though. No tradition comes into being without rationality.

>>19235077
>Is there any escape from this?
Bring that radical of the late 1800s into the modern world and ask him what he feels about transsexual toddlers and nigger homosexuals running the country.
The radical of yesterday is the conservative of today, with the common refrain of "I didn't think it would come to this".
>radical wins and moves on to kill the next sacred cow
Follow this road onward in your mind. Why wouldn't we be embracing fucking children and animals next. That's a real question not rhetoric. You imagine any sacred cow is inevitably dispatched, well then why would anything be protected from the march of progress?
Remember, you think things are beyond the pale now and imagine things wouldn't go that far, just like a radical of the 1950s couldn't possibly imagine transsexual toddlers today.

>>19239606
>Because it doesn't rest on an appeal to endoxa. Self-interest is self-rewarding.
for fucks sake

>>19239583
>Radical positions are justified by reason, regardless of whether the premises are irrational or arbitary.

>hey guys I just invented rationality! Something no one has ever done before! Aren't we lucky to be the first generation of rational thinkers?
do 19th century boomers REALLY?

>>19239682
>we must conserve traditional values by the transvaluation of all values
Seeing rightoids type is like watching a retarded child drown in a puddle.

>>19239600
>just actually hold beliefs
That means taking responsibility, never going to happen anywhere on the political spectrum.

>>19235280
>forced to be answered with rational arguments
not really. nobody can force something to be answered rationally.

>>19235077
Traditioncucks never have anything to offer than their fears and insecurities about a new age that is coming. That's all.

>>19235745
And I bet what he means by "genuine challenge" is concentration camps.

>>19237215
>The argument itself has no merit because intellectuals of both sides still read centuries of philosophy and possess rational blueprints for society itself, underpinning traditions and cultural interpretations of phenomena on both sides.
Bauer is speaking about political and philosophical conservatism/traditionalism of his time, retard. He's not using this term in this vague, metaphysical and mystical bullshit notion your lot applies to it.

>>19242138
then what is this thread about? I should wring your neck, moron.

>>19242254
Yeah, people in this board can't stay on topic and extrapolate the author's argument. New here?

>>19242322
yep, pretty disappointing but at least the prose is better.

>>19235077
>>by making new rational arguments the actual reasons the position was held (tradition/endoxa) are weakened and lost
>>radical wins and moves on to kill the next sacred cow
>Is there any escape from this?
Just learn history so you can point out, clearly, to those of the orthodoxy of the new that their presumed Actually New™ isn't really new whatsoever, and that the only thing they are doing is revolving a wheel a fraction of a radian around. It will return back to our position, eventually, because - precisely as this article shows - neither radicals nor radicalism itself is very much interested in detaching the human perception of reality from the cycle of history. This is why radicals and especially leftists are so fucking obsessed with FaCtUAls OF HistOry - they need the relativism created by the opportunity to observe history from the perspective of the contemporary phase to abuse the sensation of distance felt by the typical person to that information. This is also why they need the ablation of the conservative history and the installation of their "factual" readings - they must show that what is taken as fact, that conservative positivism, is antagonistic to the "facts", so that a typical person begins to ask the question, "But why?" when someone tells them to adhere to a conservative ideal. But that's the point you can use to destroy them.
Bauer, as most radicals and leftists, fail to understand the paradox of the heap. At what point does the rejection of what is conservative simply become the next positivist ideal? It is instantaneous, in fact. The new immediately subsumes the old, because the new doesn't listen to the old as a matter of course. This is necessary for this process Bauer describes to even exist in the first place. By making this argument of "factual histories" and demanding justifications, the new - even if it makes rational argument for itself - simply takes itself as the given. It is always a positive principle simply by stating itself as existing. If it wasn't, then the cycle that Bauer describes would have ended the moment history began. Whatever is new is simply another orthodoxy boot strapped onto the old - a new skin on a snake is nothing more than a molt waiting to happen.
This is why the typical leftist tactic is to always say they never have power and are accomplishing nothing. If they admit that they are winning social capitol to any extent, then a conservative can easily show that the radicals are becoming the new orthodoxy, so they argue that any resistance whatsoever to the zeitgeist is definitive proof that the movement hasn't even yet begun.

Regardless, it's all asinine. You could simply reject the cycle of history. The fact that radicals aren't remotely interested in that puts them, fundamentally and necessary, in the same camp as conservatives. Radicals are, in fact, nothing more than conservatives, separated by nothing more than something as literally ephemeral as time.

>>19239910
>tfw op gets btfo so hard he doesn't return
top lel